ASCENT 


OF.  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


ASCENT 


BY 

FRANCES  RUMSEY 

Author  of  "Mr.  Gushing  and  Mile.  Du 
Chastel' '  and  "Cash" 


Boni  and  Liveright 
New  York         1922 


Copyright,  1922,  by 

BONI  AND  LlVERIGHT,   INC. 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES  OF  AMERICA 


2132435 


Non  mortuis  laudabunt  te,  Domine,   necque  omnes 
qui  descendant  in  infernum.  .  .  . 


LATE  in  a  summer  afternoon,  and  above  all  an 
afternoon  when  the  light  is  not  bright  but  pale 
and  grey  with  the  first  twilight,  to  turn  from 
the  wide  highway  stretching  from  Wickford  to  the 
south  into  the  still  deep  side  road  which  leads  to  the 
highest  of  the  Wickford  hills,  is  to  lose  one's  self  in 
increasing  loneliness  in  the  increasing  dusk.  The 
villages  scatter  into  isolated  houses,  the  dusty  frame 
barns  grow  fewer,  and  the  hum  of  the  perpetually 
passing  motors  drops  away.  After  a  mile  or  two  the 
ground  begins  to  rise  with  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
valley.  The  stretch  of  country  is  so  far  towards  the 
footlands  of  the  Alleghenies  that,  as  the  road  lifts,  the 
fields  below  can  be  seen  narrowing  and  sharpening 
into  ridges,  like  the  surface  of  a  mounting  sea.  The 
waves  of  grain  and  the  roughened  waters  of  corn  flow 
into  longer  and  sparser  lines  until  they  thin  into  the 
greyer  tint  of  the  stony  hillsides.  The  green  amongst 
the  rocks  gradually  pales  and  fades;  and  the  byway 
itself  becomes  at  last  a  path  and  finally  only  a  broken 
track,  which  rises  sharply  to  ascend  the  last  lift  of 
the  hill. 

From  this  summit  the  earth  lies  freely  open  to  the 
sky,  with  one  the  reflection  of  the  vast  undulations  of 
the  other.  To  the  south  the  signs  of  habitation  remain. 
The  eye  can  still  trace  where  the  streams  must  begin 
to  widen  and  grow  deep  and  the  long  white  farmhouses 
gather  into  villages,  and  divine  that  where  the  folds 

C9] 


ASCENT 

of  the  hills  unclose  the  last  sunshine  must  still  be 
lighting  the  gold  in  the  grain.  But  to  the  west  the 
slopes  swing  into  deeper  shadows  and  mount  more 
and  more  largely,  with  the  moving  effect,  as  their 
surfaces  touch  the  paler  sky,  of  long  dark  lines  traced 
against  the  fluidity  of  light;  and  at  the  horizon  they 
merge  inperceptibly  in  the  mountains. 

Perhaps  the  fact  that  this  is  a  last  vantage  point 
makes  more  poignant  one's  sense  of  a  wider  and 
darker  country  beyond.  The  summit  itself,  with  its 
split  rocks  and  its  faint  show  of  a  stunted  underbrush, 
is  the  first  to  show  the  complete  immunity  of  a  region 
which  is  still  a  wilderness.  The  last  farm  runs  out 
into  stubble  three  miles  back  and  the  last  road  ends 
at  its  base.  The  glimpses  of  habitation,  in  the  country 
immediately  below,  are  reminders  that  the  progression 
of  the  seasons,  in  the  valley  which  must  deepen  to 
green  and  redden  to  brown  under  their  touch,  leaves 
the  monotony  of  the  upland  unbroken.  It  seems 
beyond  the  sequences  in  the  circle  of  fulfilment;  and 
the  picture  one  most  readily  forms  of  it  is  with  the 
moving  drift,  across  its  barren  face,  of  a  perpetual 
snow,  falling  with  the  same  immensity  as  the  immensity 
of  the  skies. 

As  one's  glance  lowers  from  the  wider  view  which, 
in  the  thinning  light,  flows  out  with  all  its  significances 
and  carries  thought  beyond  the  horizon,  and  drops  to 
the  roughened  surface  of  the  ground,  one  sees  that  at 
one's  feet,  and  scarring  the  broken  earth  with  its 
unmistakable  outline,  there  is  a  grave.  There  is  no 
stone,  no  attempt  at  an  enclosure,  and  no  effort  to 
forestall  the  ultimate  pervasion  of  nature.  The  narrow 
mound  is  the  sole  commemoration.  Its  presence  breaks, 

[10] 


ASCENT 

with  a  sudden  severance,  on  the  accepted  premises 
which  the  sight  of  these  large  spaces  of  beauty  has 
inspired  and  on  the  classic  allusions  of  death  with  pro 
gression.  It  does  not  lift  imagination  to  the  freedom 
and  finality  of  a  paradise.  It  rather  draws  the  fancy 
back  to  all  that  the  living  being,  before  evanescence,  is 
compelled  to  experience;  not  to  a  poetised  renunciation 
of  life,  but  to  the  surrender  inexplicably  forced  upon  a 
sentient  creature;  and  it  draws  it  with  the  brutal  jerk 
of  a  chain. 


II 

OLD  Elias  Lacy  had  come  to  Ware  within  the 
memory  of  only  its  older  inhabitants.  He  had 
been  young  enough,  at  the  time,  to  make  both 
his  situation  and  his  attitude  peculiar.  To  the  few 
people  who  questioned  him  he  replied  briefly  that  he 
had  lost  his  money;  later  he  explained,  in  his  odd 
moments  of  confidence,  that  he  had  lost  his  ambition. 
But  from  the  first  days  of  his  residence  there,  his  tall 
figure,  in  the  drowsing  village,  was  instinct  with  the 
energy  of  a  tradition.  His  clothes  had  a  set  of  worn 
gallantry,  his  voice  the  easy  inflexions  of  dealing  in 
many  societies,  and  his  light  thin  hands  the  delicacy, 
in  their  movements,  of  a  long-trained  taste.  The  time 
of  this  was  far  enough  distant  to  throw  some  of  the 
suggestions  of  romance  around  his  position,  and  Ware 
had  wondered,  for  the  first  months,  into  what  category 
of  definition  the  contradiction  of  his  presence  there 
could  fit.  But  the  shrewd  country  judgments,  if  they 
had  not  penetrated  him,  had  none  the  less,  with  the 
passage  of  time,  placed  him,  and  had  understood  that 
there  was  in  his  closed  personality  some  disaster  of 
character  beyond  the  disasters  of  action. 

As  he  grew  into  age  he  increased  his  assertions,  with 
his  smile  drier  from  year  to  year,  that  he  had  come 
to  like  cheap  rents.  He  remained,  he  said,  with  a 
brevity  in  his  comments  which  suited  the  fine  egoistic 
wrinkles  around  his  eyes,  because  all  the  more  sympa 
thetic  places  were  distasteful  to  him.  They  had  been 

[12] 


ASCENT 

full  of  reproaches  when  he  was  young,  and  now 
they  were  full  of  reminders.  He  could  stand  being 
reproached  by  the  Ware  people,  whom  he  frankly 
admitted  he  detested,  because  they  did  not  compre 
hend  him;  but  he  could  not  stand  the  reproaches  of 
more  animate  beings,  who  would  meet  him  with  his 
own  irrefutability.  "I  know  my  cynicism  is  cheap," 
he  constantly  told  Mr.  Basker,  the  Episcopal  clergy 
man.  "But  so  am  I;  it  is  quite  logical.  I'm  not  tragic 
enough  to  justify  you  in  praying  for  me.  I'm  not  Job. 
I  am  merely  the  reaction  from  Emerson  and  transcen 
dentalism."  His  penetration  had  discovered  the  fact 
that  what  people  most  resented — and  he  savoured  their 
resentment — was  their  incapacity  to  name  and  date 
what  was  wrong  in  him.  They  did  not  understand 
wrong,  he  invariably  ended  these  acidulous  conversa 
tions.  To  them  wrong  was  merely  the  absence  of 
right;  his  wrong,  he  thanked  heaven,  was  interesting 
and  constructive.  It  was  committed  with  entire  con 
sciousness,  and  he  knew  it  was  worth  while;  and  as  he 
lifted  his  whitened  head,  with  a  quick  action  of  intol 
erance,  he  seemed,  even  to  the  narrow  range  of  such 
opinion,  to  be  brushed  by  poetry  and  by  a  sense  of 
some  larger  fate  that  it  understood. 

His  wife  had  in  the  earliest  years  dropped  with 
imperceptible  ease  into  lethargy.  It  was  not  that  she 
became  part  of  the  little  world  of  the  women  around 
her;  between  them  and  her  there  were  evident  sepa 
rations  of  capacity;  but  she  did  not  trouble  to  keep 
alive  her  differences  with  it,  and  in  time  they  ceased 
to  be  potential.  Her  husband  plainly  expected  her 
not  to  show  dissatisfaction  with  restrictions  against 
which  he  so  constantly  chafed.  Their  relation  was 

[13] 


ASCENT 

explained  by  the  fact  of  her  flawless  beauty,  and  his 
eyes  never  lit  on  her  without  a  tolerant  amusement  at 
what  he  evidently  regarded  as  the  immorality  of  his 
admiration  for  her.  Her  early  death  had  scarcely 
touched  the  current  of  his  habits.  He  continued  to 
sun  himself  in  the  patch  of  garden  behind  his  little 
frame  house,  with  his  future  bound,  as  he  said,  by  the 
nervous  irregularities  of  its  architecture. 

It  was  absurd,  as  he  was  the  first  to  acknowledge,  to 
be  so  clear  in  one's  vision,  and  yet  so  annoyed;  but 
what  else  could  one  expect  in  the  face  of  the  incon 
sistency  of  Ware?  Its  refusal  to  limit  its  interest  to 
what  suited  the  class  of  its  intelligence  made  it  as 
spurious,  in  his  eyes,  as  the  pseudo-colonial  portico  of 
the  Court  House  and  the  imitation  stone  which  orna 
mented  so  many  of  the  house  fronts.  How  could  one 
ask  him  to  deal  dispassionately  with  people  who 
thought  that  taste  could  be  acquired  and  never  applied, 
who  admired  the  stained  glass  in  the  Methodist  church, 
and,  for  all  their  study  of  the  Art  of  the  East,  thrust 
the  most  extravagantly  bad  Japanese  fans  between  the 
slats  of  the  shutters,  on  the  porches  where  they  per 
petually  rocked?  He  could  not  tolerate  their  limita 
tions  for  the  sake  of  their  types;  yet,  as  he  never  failed 
to  finish  his  raillery,  was  he  himself  any  better?  He 
read  his  Wordsworth,  and  raised  his  glance  to  the  raw 
wild  beauty  of  the  northern  valley  without  seeing  it. 
Even  the  landscape  lost  its  loveliness  under  the  wreck 
age  of  his  dissection.  All  he  could  consistently  con 
sider  was  his  irritation.  His  own  inadequacies  were 
far  more  garish,  he  insisted,  than  Ware's.  It  produced 
inanimate  contradictions,  like  .bad  architecture  and 
dead  minds;  and  he  had  produced  a  constant  and 

[14] 


ASCENT 

conscious  contradiction — and  his  look,  as  he  considered 
it,  always  sharpened  to  its  most  incisive  irony — in 
that  his  taste  was  forever  being  proved  ineffectual  and 
ridiculous  in  his  son. 

His  failure  here  was  what  old  Lacy  named  his  single 
complete  distinction.  When  Philip  Lacy  had  passed 
from  a  pale  angular  little  boy  into  a  young  man  equally 
pale,  with  no  charm  in  his  attenuation  and  no  intelli 
gence  in  the  querulousness  of  his  eyes,  the  father's  look 
had  changed  with  his  son's.  From  the  time  of  the 
definite  establishment  of  his  disappointment,  his  sharp 
ness  had  had  a  new  edge.  Philip  was  difficult  to  blame; 
his  father  not  only  acknowledged  it  but  declared  it. 
He  had  worked  well  in  high  school,  and  had  for  years 
been  paid  a  small  salary  at  the  only  lawyer's  office  in 
the  village.  What  old  Lacy  found  most  intolerable 
in  him  was  his  complete  lack  of  mistakes.  He  was  all 
wrong,  he  would  insist,  and  never  wrong  in  traceable 
details.  There  was  never  an  occasion  when  one  couldn't 
irrefutably  prove  that  he  was  right.  "You  don't  need 
sin,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  had  never  tired  of  saying; 
"but  you  need  to  have  been  a  sinner.  Be  a  reformed 
one — I  see  one  couldn't  get  your  imagination  past  that. 
But  you  need  the  experience  of  abnegation.  It  enriches 
life;  it  creates  taste.  I  should  think  heaven  would 
revolt  at  your  correctness.  It's  the  first  use  I've  ever 
discovered  for  myself.  My  character  was  evidently  so 
composed  that  I  should  give  you  the  distinction  of  a 
martyrdom.  Come!  Don't  stand  there  staring!  Go 
to  your  room  and  pray  for  me."  .  .  . 

If  Philip  had  not  enough  energy  of  nature  for  the 
solace  of  a  definite  egoism,  he  gradually  developed, 
in  this  constant  opposition,  the  tenacious  obstinacy 


ASCENT 

which  was  his  only  form  of  strength.  His  father  did 
not  see  the  processes  of  this  growth,  since  he  roused 
himself  from  his  Boccaccio  or  his  Alfieri  too  seldom 
to  note  any  of  his  son's  qualities ;  but  on  the  evening 
when  Philip  paused,  on  his  way  to  bed,  and  with  his 
hand  on  the  refuge  of  the  sitting  room  door  announced 
that  he  had  decided  to  marry  Rebecca  Trail,  who  lived 
next  door,  Mr.  Lacy's  silent  stare  of  response  took 
in  the  finality  of  the  determination.  He  had  never 
hesitated,  as  he  said  to  himself,  to  recognise  the  final. 
In  his  pause  he  was  evidently  passing,  in  retrospect, 
over  the  causes  which  had  made  the  inevitability  of 
this  result,  back  to  his  wife  and  to  farther  things 
beyond  Philip's  memory.  When  he  spoke  it  was  oddly 
without  the  recrimination  for  which  his  son  had  braced 
himself.  He  briefly  said  that  the  two  could  live  with 
him  while  he  endured  and  have  his  bit  of  money  when 
he  died;  he  had  no  doubt  they  would  be  very  happy. 
He  had  no  comment  to  offer  concerning  Rebecca  except 
that,  across  the  narrow  strip  of  lawn,  he  had  long 
observed  her  daily  habits  as  indicative  of  her  mind, 
and  the  specious  tidiness  at  the  front  of  her  house  and 
the  familiarity  of  confusion  at  the  back;  and  that 
since  Philip  wished  to  marry  a  housekeeper,  it  might 
have  been  well  to  choose  one  with  aspirations.  But 
Philip  must  not  make  the  mistake  of  supposing  he 
would  be  intolerant;  his  intolerance  would  always  be 
reserved  for  himself. 

Old  Lacy  was  not  entirely  without  opportunities 
of  reaction.  He  had  been  attracted  one  day,  in  the 
Wickford  museum,  by  the  face  of  a  stooping,  fragilely 
built  man,  of  young  middle  age,  who  was  bending  in 
an  absorbed  pleasure  over  the  few  Chinese  bronzes. 

[16] 


ASCENT 

In  the  deserted  rooms  they  had  fallen  easily  into  talk, 
and  later  into  a  bond  of  friendship.  Wickford  was  a 
centre,  with  the  sophisticated  political  movements  and 
the  growing  museum  of  the  smaller  of  the  large 
American  cities.  It  was  because  of  the  museum  that, 
a  year  or  so  before  their  meeting,  John  Devon  had 
established  himself  there.  Lacy  learned,  in  their  sub 
sequent  talks,  that  he  was  a  scientist  of  repute,  whose 
works  on  minerals  were  recognised  and  quoted.  He 
had  spent  half  a  large  fortune  in  acquiring  one  of  the 
famous  collections  of  jades,  and  had  travelled  to  all 
the  odd  corners  of  the  world  to  complete  it.  His  taste 
for  rarities,  he  told  old  Lacy,  had  driven  him  from  the 
larger  museums,  and  he  had  determined,  by  the  advice 
of  a  curator  there,  to  fix  the  distinction  of  the  Wick- 
ford  foundation  by  endowing  a  wing  to  receive  his 
collection. 

It  was  one  of  the  forces  which  constituted  the 
attraction  the  two  had  for  each  other  that  Devon  was 
feeling  his  way,  at  his  age,  to  the  impermeable  attitude 
which  Lacy  had  long  since  achieved.  He  was  essen 
tially  a  person  of  attitudes,  the  old  man  had  at  once 
divined,  since  his  own  interest  was  always  roused  by 
any  form  of  an  attempted  composition  of  character. 
By  the  light  of  his  own  logic  he  had  seen  the  entirety 
of  Devon — his  taciturnity  and  his  sudden  loquacious 
ness,  his  dry  negations  and  his  inexplicable  appeal  for 
sympathy;  that  there  was  sentimentality  in  his  harsh 
ness  and  superstition  in  his  scepticism.  The  younger 
man  seldom  marked  and  dated  the  causes  which  had 
created  his  posture.  Where  he  gave  himself  away,  as 
old  Lacy  thought,  behind  the  protection  of  his  smile, 
was  in  his  dependence  on  it  as  a  defence. 


ASCENT 

"By  the  way,"  Devon  had  said  to  him,  on  the 
occasion  of  one  of  their  only  personal  exchanges,  as 
his  friend  was  about  to  set  out  for  an  evening  train, 
after  a  long  day  spent  in  examining  the  flaws  in  a 
rose-coloured  crystal,  "someone  said  your  son  was 
married." 

Old  Lacy  paused  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  and  looked 
back  to  the  open  doorway.  The  compact  little  brick 
house,  in  the  long  row  of  the  silent  street,  always 
impressed  him  by  its  unavowed  reticences,  and  he 
thought,  as  he  turned,  how  little  he  knew  of  it,  except 
the  light  oak  table  in  the  library  and  the  lunch  which 
was  always  brought  in  on  a  battered  tray  by  a  hurried 
and  talkative  servant.  He  had  frequently  reflected 
on  Devon's  obvious  neglect  of  human  relations  when 
he  saw  the  arrival  of  the  tray;  once  it  had  led  him  to 
ask  where  Mrs.  Devon  kept  herself,  and  Devon  had 
replied,  as  cursorily  as  the  old  man  himself,  that  he 
thanked  heaven  she  detested  all  that  he  valued  and 
that  she  was  to  educate  their  son  in  New  York.  They 
had  been  so  enchained,  in  the  hot  spring  hours,  with 
the  blinds  lowered  and  their  eyes  running  from  a 
reference  book  to  the  gleam  of  crystallised  sunlight  on 
the  table  between  them,  that  the  roll  of  sleepy  traffic 
in  the  sleeping  street  had  never  sounded  for  Mr.  Lacy 
and  the  arrival  of  the  slip-shod  girl  with  her  burden 
had  had  no  significance  for  the  amused  curiosity  of 
his  eyes.  But  now,  with  Devon's  question,  he  was 
struck  more  than  ever  by  the  inexplicable  appeal  in 
the  lack  of  consistency  they  betrayed.  It  occurred 
to  him  that  Devon's  philosophy  was  created  by  his 
case  and  not  by  a  knowledge  of  general  experience,  and 
the  discovery  seemed  to  link  the  younger  man's  evident 

[18] 


ASCENT 

private  uncertainties,  his  loneliness  with  his  solitude 
and  his  interest  with  his  indifference. 

"Yes,  Philip's  married.  Her  name  is  Rebecca, 
Rebecca  Trail.  She's  the  aristocracy  of  Ware — not 
near  enough  to  the  soil  to  have  its  flavour.  The  per 
fection  of  her  pretentiousness  reminds  me  of  the 
perfection  of  your  vase  there;  I  suppose  all  perfection's 
alike!  I  don't  specially  mind;"  he  took  off  his  hat 
and  ran  his  hand  through  his  close  white  hair,  with 
his  critical  glance  on  the  meagre  hyacinths  set  in  the 
border  below  the  tortuous  porch  railing;  "no,  I  really 
don't.  Philip  was  bound  to  do  it,  or  of  course  he  never 
would  have  done  it;  and  what  a  shock  I  should  have 
had  if  he  had  upset  my  theories  of  him!  All  I  object 
to  is  the  usual  attitude  about  such  things;  the  supposi 
tion  that,  if  they've  no  money,  at  least  they  are  in  love, 
don't  you  know?  Love  can  be  quite  as  ugly  as  it  can 
be  wicked.  Taste,  my  dear  fellow, — it's  the  possession 
of  taste  that  damns  us;  not  because  it  judges  crystals, 
but  because  it  judges  ugliness.  It  never  lets  one  suffer 
in  peace.  Ye  gods,  but  this  house  of  yours  is  as  ugly 
in  its  way  as  this  marriage;  who  could  have  thought, 
do  you  suppose,  of  anything  so  constructively  hideous? 
From  whom  do  you  rent  it?  And  your  boy — what's  he 
doing?" 

Devon's  thin  face  was  lowered  and  his  foot,  as  he 
leaned  against  the  door  post,  pushed  to  and  fro  the 
edge  of  the  frayed  mat.  "According  to  your  principle, 
it  doesn't  much  matter  what  he  does.  His  condemna 
tion,  like  your  son's,  will  take  care  of  itself.  At 
present," — he  smiled — "it  assumes,  I  must  admit, 
impeccable  forms.  His  mother's  using  the  most 
approved  methods  to  accomplish  it." 


ASCENT 

"Well,  you  know," — old  Lacy  bent  his  stiff  back 
and  sniffed  delicately  the  scent  of  the  hyacinths, — "one 
has  always  the  choice — to  be  lost  or  saved.  Even 
Philip  had  that.  Little  John's  really  little,  isn't  he? 
Ten,  twelve — what  is  it?  Oh,  I  suppose  you'll  do  as 
badly  as  I  did;  you  can't  do  worse;  only  don't  forget 
that  it  isn't  to  a  hell  you'll  send  him  by  your  reasonable 
ness,  but  to  a  Rebecca." 

The  dry  charm  of  Devon's  smile  shone.  "It's  rather 
a  job,  isn't  it, — to  be  sensitive  in  only  the  right  places?" 

Mr.  Lacy  met  his  eyes.  "A  fearful  job.  And  my 
way,  you  know,  isn't  much  fun — this  looking  at  illu 
sion  through  the  eyes  of  disillusion.  It's  a  formula — 
that's  the  best  one  can  say  for  it;  and  sometimes  when 
one's  not  got  a  ritual,  a  formula  helps  us  to  be  what  we 
pretend  we  are.  Well,  and  the  boy?" 

"He's  a  nice  little  chap — one  of  the  steady  sort.  As 
long  as  I  keep  my  back  turned,  he  may  grow  into 
something.  It  makes  his  mother  less  absurd  when 
she's  rid  of  me.  All  she  wants  is  enough  money 
and  a  grievance.  Oh,  she'll  do  well  enough  for 
him." 

"I've  no  patience  with  this  modern  way  of  hating." 
Lacy  glanced  at  his  watch.  "I'm  the  one  who  has 
mastered  hate — who  discovered  it  was  a  fine  art.  Yet 
when  I  thought  I  could  impart  it  to  some  one,  all  I've 
succeeded  in  doing  was  to  teach  Philip  to  be  cross! 
I've  no  mercy  for  myself,  you  see;  he's  not  naturally 
cross — I  taught  him  to  be !  Oh,  my  dear  Devon,  don't 
sublimate  me  as  a  stoic  or  a  dreamer.  I'm  an  irritable 
old  man,  whose  restlessness  has  no  motion  and  whose 
resignation  has  no  peace;  and  good  heavens,  my 
train—!"  .  .  . 

[20] 


ASCENT 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year  that  Mr. 
Lacy  stood  in  the  bow  window  of  his  little  dining  room 
and  looked  out  at  the  desiccated  lilac  bush  which,  even 
in  its  age  and  after  continuous  neglect,  lifted  a  single 
spiral  of  pale  mauve  against  the  pane.  The  window 
was  open  and  the  scent  of  upturned  earth  and  the  per 
fume  of  the  flower  drifted  in  to  meet  the  perfume  of 
the  pine  wood  in  the  grate.  He  appeared  to  compare 
them  critically,  with  his  habitual  air  of  absent 
appraisal  more  attentuated  than  usual  and  the  pecu 
liar  directness  of  his  blue  eyes  less  incisive,  as  if  he 
were  repassing  in  his  thoughts  the  long  line  of  springs 
behind  him,  whose  loveliness  had  always  discovered 
him  in  rooms  with  light  oak  woodwork,  with  bad 
carpets,  with  a  clatter  of  plates  from  the  kitchen  con 
tinually  in  his  ears  and  the  prospect  out  of  the  win 
dows  bound  by  a  neighbourhood  whose  idea  of  beauty 
was  prettiness  and  whose  curiosity  was  inquisitiveness. 
Then  he  turned  to  take  up  the  single  bottle  of  port  on 
the  table  beside  him,  with  his  thin  veined  hand  quick 
and  sure  in  all  its  movements.  The  door  had  opened 
and  closed  in  the  last  moments;  and  the  tall  young 
doctor  who  leaned  against  it,  declined,  with  a  dry  nod 
which  betrayed  his  opinion  of  Mr.  Lacy,  his  host's 
motion  to  a  chair. 

"She'll  live,  then?"  Mr.  Lacy  put  his  question 
briefly. 

"Yes,  Mr.  Lacy;  I  take  it  that  she'll  live." 

Mr.  Lacy's  hand  motioned  to  the  glasses  on  the 
table.  "You  won't,  my  dear  doctor?  But  the  last  of 
my  best  port — you  will,  eh?  I  got  it  from  my  grand 
father  who  saw  the  casks  unloaded  at  Salem.  All 
these  years  I've  regarded  it  as  an  image  of  morality; 

[21] 


ASCENT 

not  because  I  specially  like  port — as  a  matter  of  fact 
I  abhor  it — but  because  the  opposition  between  such 
wine  and  my  poverty  was  such  a  good  discipline  for 
me.  Absurd,  isn't  it,  this  thing  we  loosely  call  life? 
And  here  we've  brought  another  creature  into  it! 
You  say  she'll  undoubtedly  pull  through?" 

"Oh,  she'll  pull  through.  A  child  with  vitality  like 
that  is  bound  to  react.  I've  thought  so  all  along,  and 
to-day  I'm  sure  of  it."  The  doctor's  glance — he  was 
a  distant  relative  of  Philip's  wife — was  again  defen 
sive.  "From  her  poor  mother  she's  evidently  inherited 
a  constitution." 

Mr.  Lacy  smiled  at  the  brown  lights  in  his  glass. 
"Are  you  trying  to  tell  me  my  son's  got  no  chest  and 
no  marrow?  Because  you  don't  know  nearly  as  much 
about  it  as  I  do.  No,  no,  I  owe  Rebecca  a  debt.  I 
can't  say  her  death  has  cost  me  much.  If  you'll  allow 
me  to  put  it  so,  I  don't  believe  it  cost  her  much  either. 
Probably,  on  the  whole,  to  die  was  easier  for  her  than 
to  live.  The  emotion  of  which  she  always  seemed  to 
me  most  supremely  incapable  was  enthusiasm.  I've 
often  wondered,  in  the  last  days,  while  I've  watched 
Philip  try  to  feel  more  grief  than  he's  constitutionally 
fitted  to  feel,  why  sorrow  is  the  sole  emotion  which  it's 
not  considered  indelicate  to  indulge  to  excess.  But 
there  it  is;  Rebecca,  the  astounding  creature,  sur 
prised  me;  and  of  course  I  like  to  pretend  to  myself 
that  the  one  thing  I  haven't  been  for  a  long  time," 
his  smile  deepened,  "is  surprised." 

"Mrs.  Lacy  went  through  a  great  deal;"  the 
doctor's  observation  had  its  inevitable  sententious- 
ness. 

"Bless  you,  of  course  she  did!     It's  not  so  easy,  it 

[22] 


ASCENT 

appears,  to  bring  a  child  into  the  world.  But  that 
she  succeeded,  and  that  then  she  died  ...  no,  no, 
that's  not  what  has  surprised  me.  Dear  me,  no!  It's 
that  the  baby,  her  daughter  and  Philip's,  has  evidently 
the  taste  of  life.  I'm  scarcely  a  romanticist.  But  I 
admit  it's  stirred  my  imagination — to  see,  for  the  last 
fortnight,  that  tiny  being  cling  with  every  inch  of  her 
incredibly  small  body  to  all  that  I'm  so  long  sick  of. 
By  Jove,  Rebecca's  child's  got  a  will!" 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  we  take  much  to  that  kind 
of  idea  here  in  these  parts.  I  should  say,"  the  doctor 
had  his  caution,  "that  she  had  plain  vitality." 

"Vitality — and  what  makes  vitality?  Mere  blood? 
This  absurd  school  that  thinks  will  is  the  result  of 
things  and  not  the  cause  of  them!  No,  no,  I  tell  you 
she's  made  herself  live." 

The  port  had  warmed  the  doctor's  manner  a  little. 
"Of  course  we  had  everything  against  us.  I  admit 
that  a  few  days  ago  I  wasn't  sure,  one  way  or  the 
other.  When  you  can't  get  an  infant  nourished  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Lacy's  glance  had  passed  to  the  window  again 
and  to  the  house  next  door,  discernible  through  a 
hedge  of  still  bare  trees  and  with  its  decorous  pros 
perity  dozing  in  the  sunshine. 

"By  all  the  laws  of  continuity  she  should  have  died; 
it's  sentimentally  fitting  that  the  child  of  two  such 
people  should  leave  this  world  with  her  mother.  All 
their  bad  romances  say  so.  Well,  what  saved  her,  I 
ask  you?  Something  no  Trail  ever  had,  and  no  Lacy 
either — will!  Oh,  we've  been  worse  than  the  Trails 
in  our  way;  I  don't  deny  it.  It's  worse  to  fail  in  your 
intelligence  than  to  succeed  in  your  stupidity.  Good 
heaven,  no  one  could  be  enough  of  a  fool  to  think  I 

[23] 


ASCENT 

had  a  will.  I've  obstinacy,  but  I've  no  will.  No,  it's 
too  much  for  me.  If  you  could  show  me  the  perfec 
tion  of  mediocrity  better  than  it  was  exemplified  in 
her  mother  ..."  He  paused  and  his  smile  again  set 
on  his  port .  "Though  there's  one  thing!  In  the  even 
sea  of  your  cousin's  dreariness,  did  you  ever  notice 
that  she  had  a  single  beauty — her  ears?  Yes,  it's 
true!  She  had  delightful  little  ears;  set  close  and 
high — don't  you  know?  Really  charming!" 

The  doctor  fell  into  one  of  the  silences  which  Mr. 
Lacy  frequently  inspired.  He  looked  with  his  masked 
reticence  at  his  host,  and  finally,  as  the  more  expli 
cable  of  the  two,  back  to  his  wine.  "He  seemed  to 
think,"  the  old  gentleman  said  to  his  son  that  evening, 
"that  I  ought  to  realise  that  everyone  else  has  ears. 
He's  an  odd  young  man — he  tends  to  the  safety  of  the 
generic.  He  regards  the  special  as  a  little  indecent. 
Ah!  That's  the  word!  Rebecca's  ears  were  actually 
a  little  indecent.  Weren't  they,  eh?  No — of  course 
you  never  noticed  them!" 

They  had  gone  by  mutual  consent  to  the  narrow 
porch,  when  they  rose  from  the  supper  table,  and 
drawn  two  rocking  chairs  away  from  the  infiltration 
of  light  through  the  closed  blinds  of  the  sitting  room. 
The  arc  lamp  at  the  crossing  a  few  yards  away  hissed 
and  flickered  in  the  stillness,  and  every  now  and  then 
the  noises  of  the  kitchen  came  from  the  house  next 
door.  Rebecca  was  in  this  spot  still  peculiarly 
present.  The  high  fumed  oak  stand  on  which  stood 
a  worn  Boston  fern,  in  its  brown  glazed  pot,  and  the 
hard  bright  pink  cushions  on  the  chairs,  had  resumed 
her  single  effort  at  the  creation  of  a  home.  The  pub 
licity  of  the  porch  had  perhaps  seemed  to  her  a  pro- 

[24] 


ASCENT 

tection.  Mr.  Lacy  had  a  penetrative  effect.  He  filled 
the  little  rooms  with  the  discomfort  of  uncertainty, 
with  his  unexpected  violences,  his  unexpected  laugh, 
and  his  capitulations  which  were  always  more  disturb 
ing  than  his  resistances;  and  in  this  comparatively 
peopled  surrounding,  she  had  evidently  felt  herself 
secure  from  his  bewildering  contact. 

Philip  had  drawn  his  chair,  with  unvarying  habit, 
so  that  he  could  discern  anyone  who  passed  up  or 
down  the  street.  An  instinctive  preoccupation  with 
other  people's  errands  was  his  only  form  of  social 
feeling,  and  as  his  father  frequently  told  him  he  was 
happy  only  in  a  promiscuity  which  had  none  of  the 
interest  of  human  intercourse.  He  sat  with  his  knees 
pressed  together,  his  finger  tips  against  each  other, 
and  his  feet  rising  from  heel  to  toe  with  the  motion 
of  his  chair.  Old  Lacy  noted  these  details,  with  a 
set  determination  to  omit  none  of  the  annoyance  they 
caused  him,  before  he  continued. 

"I  went  up  for  a  moment  after  supper;  that  trained 
nurse  is  such  a  fool.  She'd  put  a  hot  water  bottle  at 
the  foot  of  the  crib,  and  had  wrapped  it  only  in  a 
worn-out  towel;  idiot!  I  told  your  mother,  years  ago, 
that  we  couldn't  afford  cheap  linen.  Doesn't  the 
woman  know  flannel  when  she  sees  it?" 

Philip  sighed.  "It's  very  hard — all  this  responsi 
bility  of  a  young  baby'  that's  come  upon  me.  And 
the  nurse  says  she'll  have  to  leave  at  the  end  of  the 
month.  Her  brother's  to  be  married — to  a  girl  who 
lives  down  at  Cold  Springs.  He  does  very  well — he 
works  in  a  shoe  factory — and  they've  saved  quite  a 
bit.  That's  one  thing  I'm  thankful  for;  poor  Rebecca 
can't  see  all  that's  hard  for  me." 

[25] 


ASCENT 

"My  dear  Philip,  have  you  ever  stopped  to  think 
that  the  only  feeling  Rebecca  created  in  you  was  an 
added  obstinacy?  No?  Well,  I  have." 

Philip  rocked  for  a  moment  in  silence.  He  had 
acquired  the  habit,  in  self-defence,  of  falling  back  on 
this  safe  sense  of  obscurity  in  regard  to  what  his 
father  said  and  of  an  even  pursuit  of  his  own  thoughts. 
"Well,  it's  a  terrible  thing  to  be  left  as  I  am;  I  never 
expected  it — no,  never.  Why,  only  the  week  before 
the  baby  came  I  said  to  Joseph  Trail — I  met  him 
just  at  the  corner,  by  the  church — that  Rebecca  had 
never  looked  better.  I  really  did.  He  remembers  it, 
because  the  day  of  the  funeral  he  told  Carrie  Salter 
so.  Of  course  I  didn't  hear  him,  but  Carrie  said  so 
to  Norah,  that  night,  when  Norah  went  over  to  the 
Salters  to  borrow  some  olive  oil."  He  glanced,  with 
habitual  unease,  at  his  father's  erect  form.  "Some 
times  it  seems  to  me  just  too  much;  that  I,  of  all 
people,  should  have  had  it  happen  to  me!" 

Mr.  Lacy  swerved  suddenly.  His  long  habit  of 
intensiveness  had  given  him  the  power  of  breaking 
his  rigid  silences  with  all  his  force  of  attack.  He 
brought  his  closed  fist  down  on  the  arm  of  his  chair 
and  his  voice,  which  had  in  it  a  sound  strange  to 
Philip,  who  was  so  accustomed  to  his  censure,  shook. 

"By  heaven,  you  don't  know  even  the  little  when 
you  see  it;  you  actually  don't!  Can't  you  understand 
that  it's  not  Rebecca  who's  important,  or  you  or  me? 
If  Rebecca  has  any  consciousness,  I'll  tell  you  what 
she  is — she's  glad.  She  knows  now — if  she  knows 
anything — that  she  ought  to  be  dead.  Every  woman 
who's  produced  a  child  is  forced  to  admit,  con 
sciously  or  subconsciously,  certain  truths.  They're 

[26] 


ASCENT 

large  truths,  they're  vital  truths.  Rebecca — oh,  let 
us  finish  with  Rebecca!  She'd  be  the  first  to  tell  you 
now  that  she  doesn't  matter.  What  matters  solely  is 
that  little  creature  upstairs — that  creature  to  whom,  if 
I  swing  for  it,  I  am  going  to  give  a  chance!" 

Philip's  rocking  had  ceased;  he  fingered  his  watch 
chain  helplessly,  with  the  single  fear,  in  the  confusion 
of  his  mind,  that  the  Trails  might  be  on  their  porch 
within  earshot. 

"She  has  clung  to  life!"  Mr.  Lacy's  voice  lifted 
with  menace.  "She's  beat  back  annihilation.  She's  an 
ugly,  strong  little  thing — all  resistance  and  all  attack. 
Oh,  I  don't  fool  myself  about  her.  Probably  she'll 
turn  out  as  educated  and  as  unintelligent  as  all  Ameri 
can  women.  I'll  dish  her,  if  she  doesn't  dish  herself, 
I  take  it.  But  she's  got  her  force  of  personality. 
That's  what's  between  her  and  me.  She  understands 
it — I  know  it!  She  understands  that  you're  an  acci 
dent  and  that  her  mother,  poor  soul,  was  one  of  those 
accidents  that  happen  to  all  people  who  are  accidents. 
She  knows  that  I'm  the  one  to  give  her  a  hand  up;  well, 
she'll  have  it!  I  tell  you,  I  respect  that  child!" 

Philip  cleared  his  voice,  with  the  vague  sense  that 
this  was  more  violent  than  his  father's  usual  outbursts 
and  must  be  arrested;  he  finally  brought  out,  with  an 
instinctive  attempt  at  the  safety  of  a  diversion: 
"Since  she's  so  much  better,  I  suppose  we  might  ven 
ture  to  think  of  a  christening." 

Mr.  Lacy's  hand  again  fell  on  his  chair.  "Exactly, 
a  christening!  You're  perfection  itself;  and  call  her 
Rebecca  Trail  Lacy,  after  her  mother — ah,  I'm  wrong, 
her  poor  dear  mother.  But  I  can  tell  you  one  thing;" 
he  turned  on  Philip,  through  the  obscurity;  "she's  to 

[27] 


ASCENT 

be  disposed  of  by  me.  She's  not  to  be  bothered  by 
stupidities,  she's  not  to  be  christened.  I'll  have  none 
of  that  nonsense.  Her  name — do  you  hear  me? — her 
name's  Olive." 

Philip  had  never  more  desired  the  power  of 
insistence.  He  had  an  outraged  conviction  of  the 
comments  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  he  whipped  up 
his  resistance.  "But  why  Olive?" 

"Never  mind  why.  I  knew  a  woman  once — Olive 
was  her  name — do  you  see?  Oh,  centuries  and  cen 
turies  ago  ...  a  strange  creature.  And  all  across 
the  centuries  she's  been  with  me.  .  .  .  That's  some 
thing  wiser  people  than  you  can't  understand, — the 
way  the  furtive  passing  physical  contacts  perpetuate 
themselves  in  one's  spirit.  For  me  this  child  named 
herself  Olive  when  she  refused  to  die;  and  who  are 
you  and  I,"  Mr.  Lacy's  malice  gleamed  like  a  light 
in  the  stillness,  "to  interfere  with  her  decisions  for 
herself?" 

Philip  made  some  murmur  of  reply;  it  struck  him 
as  the  most  incongruous  baptismal  ceremony  he  had 
ever  imagined,  with  his  thoughts  still  circling  about 
a  lace  dress  for  the  baby  and  a  profusion  of  white 
flowers,  and  himself  in  the  double  emotionality  of  his 
fatherhood  and  his  grief. 

Mr.  Lacy  rose,  jerked  his  chair  from  his  path,  and 
turned  towards  the  door.  "So  that's  settled.  And 
you'll  never,  resign  yourself  to  it,  see  anything  of 
yourself  or  her  mother,  or  of  accidents  and  failures 
in  her.  She  won't  need  a  saving  grace;  I  know.  .  .  ." 
His  look  shone  again.  "I've  examined  her  ears,  and 
thank  God  they're  rather  ugly!" 

[28] 


Ill 

MR.  LACY  never  entered  the  child's  room 
without  an  accentuated  sense  of  the  return 
in  her  unintelligent  glance.  It  had  frequently 
struck  him  in  his  experience  that  the  ways  in  which 
personality  is  made  are  traceable  by  the  finer  percep 
tion;  and  though  he  could  have  smiled  at  the  extrava 
gance  of  the  thought,  he  felt,  each  time  he  looked  at 
the  little  Olive,  that  her  character  was  composing  itself 
under  his  eyes.  She  seemed  not  only  to  extend,  as  she 
grew,  the  range  of  sharp  and  inquisitive  senses,  but  to 
feel  about — sometimes  it  seemed  to  him  positively  that 
—for  the  ways  she  could  impress  and  impose  her 
self.  She  was  always  and  increasingly  possessed  of  a 
determination  so  definite  that  it  carried  a  suggestion 
of  a  strength  far  beyond  her  capacity.  Her  actions 
were  acute  with  her  vitality;  and  from  the  hours  when 
he  sat  beside  her  bed,  and  later  beside  her  little 
carriage,  drawn  out  of  the  sun  on  Rebecca's  porch, 
and  watched  the  growing  motions  of  her  legs  and  arms 
and  the  reflective  power  creep  into  her  eyes,  he  had 
more  and  more  a  sense  of  the  confirmation  of  his  fan 
tastic  idea. 

As  the  months  passed  and  lengthened,  it  strengthened 
with  her  strength.  Throughout  her  childish  relation 
with  him,  with  her  old  nurse  and  with  her  father,  he 
fancied  that  he  could  trace  in  her  this  odd  effect  of  a 
calculation.  He  never  lost  sight  of  the  pressure  of  her 
tenacity  or  the  pulse  of  her  will.  She  had  become 

[29] 


ASCENT 

active  and  long,  with  fine  bones  and  little  of  the  usual 
baby  plumpness;  and  every  day  Mr.  Lacy  felt  in  her 
a  new  restlessness.  She  learned  to  walk  and  to  talk 
with  the  same  definiteness,  and  always,  as  he  guessed, 
with  her  quick  eyes  watching  and  searching  for  the 
new  ways  of  management  and  manipulation  which 
were  becoming  apparent  to  her.  He  divined  already 
the  rapidity  and  dominance  of  her  quality  of  response. 
If  he  brought  her  a  toy,  when  she  was  three  or  four, 
Mr.  Lacy  could  have  sworn  that  if  he  himself  showed 
no  admiration  for  her  interest  in  it,  that  interest  ceased. 
She  was  fonder  of  her  tyranny  of  old  Norah,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  than  of  all  Norah's  heavily  kind  care; 
and  she  was  undoubtedly  more  diverted  in  watching  the 
contraction  of  her  father's  pale  eyebrows  and  of  his 
pained  protests  that  really  she  was  a  strange  child  to  be 
Rebecca's  daughter,  than  of  sitting  on  his  lap  and 
playing  with  his  watch  chain. 

It  was  her  treatment  of  Philip,  indeed,  which  first 
convinced  her  grandfather  of  the  beginnings  of  her 
selective  sense.  The  year  that  she  was  six  he  could 
measure  the  difference  with  which  her  eyes  passed 
from  him  to  Philip  and  from  Philip  back  to  him;  and 
finally  he  was  sure  that  they  rested  on  him — whenever 
he  was  at  his  usual  task  of  condemning  his  son's  ineffi 
ciencies — with  understanding.  She  one  day  even  told 
him  that  her  father  and  Norah  were  stupid,  scarcely 
with  rancour  but  with  the  air  of  having  reached  a 
conclusion  which  corresponded  with  his  own.  It  was 
evident  to  him  that  she  had  begun  to  listen.  She  had 
heard  him  say  so  often  that  his  son  was  illogical  and 
Norah  slow  that  her  first  observations  took  the  tincture 
of  his.  Mr.  Lacy  grew  to  have  a  delightful  sense  of 

[30] 


ASCENT 

her  pleasure  in  his  company — not  based  on  a  facile 
sentimentality,  as  he  told  himself,  but  because  of  the 
added  interest  it  gave  the  flavour  of  his  own  penetra 
tive  adjectives,  when  he  heard  them  in  her  mouth. 

Yet  if  she  began  to  want  reasons  and  facts,  they 
always,  as  he  traced  it,  came  back  to  herself.  When 
the  Salter  house,  further  along  the  street,  burned  to 
the  ground,  Philip  was  disturbed  by  Olive's  instant 
assumption  that  the  catastrophe  was  after  all  unimpor 
tant  since  it  could  make  no  conceivable  difference  to 
the  Lacys'  comfort;  or  that  when  a  little  boy,  who 
lived  opposite,  died  in  the  worst  suffering  of  diphtheria, 
her  only  interest  should  be  her  personal  avoidance  of 
contagion.  "She  actually  said,"  he  told  his  father, 
"  'what  do  I  care  as  long  as  it's  not  me?' ' 

Mr.  Lacy's  laugh  broke  out.  "You  always  welcome 
everything  with  a  preconceived  sentiment,  don't  you? 
It's  astonishing — to  be  so  pat  as  you  are,  and  to  have 
no  sense  of  fitness.  Well,  and  do  you  think — may 
one  ask? — that  you're  going  to  bring  Olive  up  by  the 
Ten  Commandments?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know  why  not."  Philip  had  been 
exasperated  as  far  as  his  obstinacy.  "After  all,  I  happen 
to  believe  in  them,  if  you  don't." 

"Good  heavens,  my  dear  fellow,  I  shan't  stop  you! 
It's  not  nearly  as  simple  as  that.  It's  Olive  herself 
who  will  stop  you." 

"You  mean,  I  suppose,  that  you'll  encourage  her 
not  to  obey  them;"  Philip  had  never  had  more  clearly 
his  latent  sense  that  he  was  right,  crippled  by  his 
personal  inhibitions.  "No,  it's  shocking,  father,  that 
she  should  go  on  like  this — aping  in  you  what  she 
can't  understand." 


ASCENT 

Mr.  Lacy's  face  grew  graver.  "I  mean  that  she 
hasn't  the  capacity  to  obey  them.  Oh,  don't  worry; 
she'll  never  flatten  into  sin  any  more  than  she'll  flatten 
into  virtue!  She's  got  judgment  and  she's  got  sense. 
It's  her  own  judgment  and  her  own  sense,  I  admit;  but 
I  doubt  if  you  ever  impose  on  her  yours."  His  look 
wavered  on  the  edge  of  a  smile.  "The  child's  got  a 
touch  of  the  fateful — don't  you  see?  She's  all  eager 
ness,  and  yet  she  can't  absorb." 

He  had  begun,  in  the  same  summer,  to  plan  Olive's 
lessons;  and  it  was  not  only  the  interest  and  contagion 
of  her  awkward  curiosity  which  added  to  his  view  of 
her.  If  her  look,  as  it  continually  turned  to  him, 
expanded  and  enriched  his  world,  it  also  had  the  power 
to  contract  it  to  the  warmth  of  the  personal.  It  pleased 
him  as  no  spontaneous  action  could  have  pleased  him 
that  the  more  he  told  her  and  the  wider  doors  he  opened 
for  her,  the  more  readily  and  warmly  her  hand  slipped 
into  his.  In  his  extravagance  of  view,  she  seemed 
already  to  prove  his  theory  about  her.  She  felt  her  way 
into  his  personality,  he  could  have  said,  and  found  how 
much  she  loved  him  as  her  intelligence  grew.  But  if 
her  affection  could  withstand  the  hard  rulings  of  his 
mind,  he  had  to  admit,  with  his  wry  look,  that  it  was 
through  her  own  mind  that  he  reached  her  affection. 

"Do  you  like  to  be  with  me?"  he  abruptly  asked  her, 
one  morning  when  she  came,  fresh  and  hot  from  an  hour 
amongst  the  flower  beds,  to  the  sitting  room  with  her 
reader. 

"Of  course,  grandfather,  I  love  to  dig;  but  if  I  have 
to  come  in  from  the  garden"  .  .  .  she  slipped  down  on 
his  knees  and  traced  with  her  thin  brown  finger  the 
thin  blue  veins  on  his  hand. 

[32] 


ASCENT 

"I'll  do,  eh?" 

"I've  not  much  choice,  have  I?  Just  father  and 
Norah!  But  I  think  you're  dreadfully  interesting.  I 
like  you  for  being  so  disagreeable.  Of  course  father 
thinks  it  wrong  to  be  disagreeable.  But  I'm  sure  you 
have  a  much  better  time  than  he  does.  Everyone's 
afraid  of  you;  and  that's  what's  fun,  isn't  it?  That's 
what  I  want — to  have  everyone  afraid  of  me." 

Mr.  Lacy  hesitated  before  he  spoke  again;  his  mind 
had  so  leapt  ahead  of  her  childhood  that  he  found  him 
self  using,  in  dealing  with  her,  his  own  thoughts  if  not 
his  own  terms.  He  lifted  her  long  brown  braid  of  hair 
and  drew  it  through  his  fingers,  with  one  of  his  sudden 
changes  of  tone.  "After  all,  my  dear,  I'm  much  more 
dreadful  to  my  useless  self  than  to  anyone  else!" 

Olive  threw  up  her  head,  with  a  motion  familiar  to 
her.  "Well,  I  shall  be,"  she  spoke  clearly,  "just  as 
dreadful  as  I  can." 

"It's  very  lonely,  to  be  dreadful,"  said  Mr.  Lacy 
briefly;  he  did  not  know  whether  his  tone  quite  con 
cealed  his  sense  of  the  odd  earnestness  which  underlay 
all  their  conversations. 

"You  seem  to  like  being  lonely;  perhaps  I  shall." 
She  had  the  sudden  frown  he  had  noted  in  her  when 
she  was  reflecting.  "Though  of  course  it  wouldn't  be 
such  fun  if  you  were  always  alone,  would  it?  It 
wouldn't  be  such  fun"  .  .  .  she  slipped  unconsciously 
into  Philip's  favourite  descriptive  phrase  of  his  father 
—"because  then  you'd  have  no  one  to  take  things 
out  on." 

Her  grandfather  again  waited.  He  always  asserted 
so  openly  before  her  his  freedom  from  all  the  conven 
tionalities  of  altruism  that  it  saturated  the  atmosphere 

[33] 


ASCENT 

she  breathed.  But  the  sound  of  his  acidulous  theories 
on  her  lips  gave  him  for  the  first  time  an  arresting 
impression. 

"But  what  earthly  good  does  it  after  all  do,  pussy, 
to  have  people  think  you're  dreadful?" 

"Now  you're  trying  to  talk  like  father;"  her  eyes 
held  him;  "and  it's  not  a  bit  like  you.  No,  I've 
decided.  I  want  to  make  people  afraid  of  me;  because 
if  people  are  afraid  of  you  it  means,  of  course,  that 
they  think  you're  wonderful." 

"Wonderful!"  he  broke  out. 

"Yes.  When  the  Salter  children  came  to  play- 
when  father  made  me  ask  them — didn't  you  see  they 
thought  I  was  wonderful?  They  were  terribly  afraid 
of  me — terribly;  they'll  never  come  again.  You  said 
they  were  just  stupid;  but  I  didn't  think  them  stupid 
because  they  thought  I  was  so  wonderful." 

Mr.  Lacy's  hand  rested  on  her  hair.  "Of  course— 
you  know  I  never  say  anything  less  than  all  the  truth 
to  you — of  course  you  know  you  are  rather  wonder 
ful!" 

"Of  course  I  know  it.  But  what  good  would  it  do 
me  to  be  wonderful" — she  always  had  her  next  idea 
outlined  and  ready — "if  they  didn't  see  how  wonderful 
I  was?" 

He  pushed  her  an  inch  farther.  "But  suppose  you're 
not  wonderful?" 

"But  what  makes  being  wonderful,  unless  it  is  that 
people  think  you're  wonderful?  That's  all  that 
matters,"  she  ended  in  her  definite  voice,  "to  make 
them  all  see  how  wonderful  you  are." 

In  the  next  weeks  Mr.  Lacy's  thoughts  often  reverted 
to  her  words.  They  seemed  to  have  defined  for  him 

[34] 


ASCENT 

much  that  he  had  felt  formlessly.  He  had  progressively 
the  sense  not  of  Olive's  development  nor  of  the  shaping 
of  her  character,  but  rather  that  her  character  already 
existed,  and  that  her  growth  was  to  be  a  discovering 
and  unfolding  of  tendencies  established  because  they 
were  complete.  He  had  ended,  on  this  occasion,  with 
a  realisation  of  the  futility  of  combating  her  basic 
attack  on  people — her  necessity  to  conquer  rather  than 
to  convince  them,  and  her  imposition  of  herself  by 
enforcing  a  recognition  of  her  superiority.  She  seemed 
to  him  to  have  a  hard  spiritual  concision;  and  even  in 
her  imitation  of  him,  as  it  grew  from  day  to  day,  he 
saw  an  attempt  to  put  into  practice  a  definiteness  all 
her  own. 

He  was  to  remember  that  it  was  one  hot  afternoon, 
in  the  August  of  the  same  summer,  as  he  sat  rocking  in 
the  thin  shadow  of  the  desiccated  creeper  which 
screened  the  verandah  and  fanning  himself  with  his 
straw  hat,  that  his  sense  of  a  lack,  in  his  grandchild, 
of  any  of  the  preconceptions  of  duty  reached  a  point 
of  action.  The  western  sun  beat  fully  on  him;  but 
Norah  was  on  the  back  porch,  and  the  little  house  full 
of  the  drowsy  flies  which,  at  this  temperature,  forced 
their  way  everywhere.  His  physical  discomfort  had 
had  some  part  in  bringing  Mr.  Lacy  to  his  moral  con 
clusion.  At  times  he  admitted,  with  a  sardonic  regret 
that  he  must  accord  her  this  recognition,  that  he 
missed  Rebecca.  She  had  at  least  been  able  to  see 
that  the  broken  wire  nettings  at  the  windows  were 
replaced  and  the  signs  of  encroaching  poverty  to  some 
extent  tempered.  It  was  his  fate,  he  supposed,  to 
have  women  in  his  life  who  were  conveniences  and  not 
necessities.  The  effort  at  recollection  was  wearisome 

[351 


ASCENT 

to  him  and  even  his  brighter  memories  flattened  to  the 
stale,  in  the  listlessness  of  the  dead  air;  but  he  was 
aware  of  wondering  what  one  ever  after  all  knew  of 
the  conditions  of  another  mind,  and  whether  his 
daughter-in-law  had  not  sometimes  revolted  at  the 
fact  that  she  was  condemned  to  be  herself.  The  idea 
circled  in  his  heavy  thoughts.  In  the  glare  of  the  sun 
light  which  flooded  the  lawn,  the  deserted  dusty  street 
and  the  open  meadow  across  it,  out  to  the  dark  line 
which  the  hills  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley  drew 
against  the  sky — a  line  heavily  black  in  the  yellow 
light — his  eyes  were  ponderous  and  dimmed;  but  just 
before  the  hills  rose  he  saw,  in  the  haze  of  heat,  the 
scintillating  white  points  of  the  tombstones  in  the 
churchyard.  His  tired  vision  fixed  on  them;  and  after 
a  few  moments  of  thought,  and  with  his  look  now 
changed  to  a  resigned  irony,  he  rose  abruptly  and 
called  Olive. 

She  ran  around  a  corner  of  the  house  in  an  instant 
and  met  him  at  the  gate.  Her  hand  slipped  into  his, 
she  wiped  her  hot  dark  brow  and  drew  her  hat  over  her 
eyes,  and  her  feet  tried  to  fall  into  his  stride.  There 
was  always,  as  he  noticed,  a  happy  inevitability  in  her 
way  of  joining  him.  She  never  expressed  her  pleasure, 
but  it  was  more  certain  than  any  expression  that  she 
should  respond  so  quickly  and  that  her  face  should  lift 
with  such  light  to  his.  They  crossed  the  street,  on 
their  way  to  strike  through  the  meadow.  The  heat  was 
so  intense  that  it  quivered  like  the  fluctuations  of  a 
flame  in  the  still  air.  The  village  lay  immobilised. 
Along  the  street,  towards  the  square  where  the  Court 
House,  the  Presbyterian  church,  and  the  most  populous 
of  the  shops  clustered,  a  single  sleepy  wagon  was  drawn 

[36] 


ASCENT 

to  the  curb,  and  the  motionlessness  of  the  horses,  with 
their  rusty  tails  hanging  inertly  under  the  slaughter  of 
the  flies,  added  to  the  desolation  of  the  scene.  Years 
and  years  earlier  Mr.  Lacy  had  caught  himself,  when 
ever  he  crossed  the  street,  looking  down  its  arid  length 
with  expectancy,  under  the  low  arch  of  the  maples  in 
summer  and  through  the  grey  lacework  of  their  boughs 
in  winter.  He  never  knew  what  he  awaited,  in  this 
habit  of  a  scrutiny  less  of  his  curiosity  than  of  his  cyni 
cism.  He  would  watch  the  iceman  carry  his  dripping 
burden  to  the  Basker  gate  and  the  baker  choosing  the 
heaviest  of  his  pies  for  the  Trails;  and  the  perfection 
of  flatness  in  his  surroundings  would  enclose  him  anew, 
so  that  even  its  finality  seemed  to  him  mediocre  and  not 
tremendous. 

They  passed  into  the  meadow,  down  the  slope  which, 
on  this  side  of  the  valley,  rose  from  its  low  edges,  and 
crossed  the  little  stream  of  the  Ware  river,  so  dried  and 
silent  that  the  frail  footbridge  hung  high  above  stones 
which  were  bare  and  grey.  In  a  moment  more  a 
shadow  of  deep  green  fell  on  Mr.  Lacy's  heated  face 
and  he  felt  like  a  touch  the  coolness  of  the  trees  in  the 
churchyard.  He  pushed  aside  the  iron  gate,  beckoned 
Olive  after  him  through  the  long  wild  grass,  and  sank 
under  a  tree  with  a  breath  of  relief.  His  hand  ran  for 
a  second  or  two  over  his  hair,  which  was  still  thick  and 
vividly  white  and  full  of  his  rare  vitality,  before  he 
turned  to  look  at  the  child. 

"Well,  pussy,  this  is  a  place  you've  never  been!" 
"No."    Olive  lifted  her  head  and  sent  her  swift  look 
around  her;  she  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  grave 
stone  nearest  Mr.  Lacy  and  sat  swinging  her  thin  legs. 
"No — but  of  course  I  know  all  about  it.    It's  where 

t37J 


ASCENT 

they  put  people  when  they  are  dead — when  they  can't 
get  up  and  go  away  again.  Norah  never  brings  me 
in  when  we  pass — of  course  I  know  why!  She  wants 
to  keep  it  to  frighten  me  with  when  I'm  bad.  I  can't 
see  that  there's  much  to  be  afraid  of.  Why  did  you 
bring  me  here,  grandfather?" 

Mr.  Lacy  took  his  time  before  he  answered.  He 
had  seldom  been  farther  from  his  usual  impulse  to 
treat  her  intellectually.  He  was  always  conscious  that 
the  curiosity  she  inspired  in  him  was  as  potent  as  his 
affection.  But  his  dominant  instinct  was  confused  at 
the  moment  with  the  same  loyalty  which  had  made 
him  take  what  he  recognised  was  an  absurd  walk  in  an 
unbelievable  heat,  and  his  voice  lowered  as  he  spoke. 

"I  brought  you,  my  dear,  to  try  to  tell  you  what 
you've  lost  by  death.  If  you're  to  be  like  me,  you'll 
want  to  cast  up  your  account  in  life — the  account  of 
what  you  haven't  as  well  as  of  what  you  have.  And 
there's  a  great  deal,  my  child,  that  you  haven't;  you've 
lost  the  irreparable  thing;  you've  lost  your  mother." 

She  gave  a  quick  absent  nod,  as  if  she  disposed  of 
the  softness  in  his  tone,  and  her  eager  eyes  remained 
set  on  his.  "Just  what  is  a  mother?"  she  asked. 

Mr.  Lacy's  surprise  caught  him,  in  spite  of  himself. 
"But  you  must  know!  Everyone  has  a  mother;  it's 
the  name  given  to  a  woman  when  she  has  a  child." 

"Yes,  I  know;  but  of  course  there  must  be  different 
kinds  of  mothers.  Most  of  them  must  be  different," 
she  ended,  "from  mine." 

"Different  .  .  .  ?" 

"Yes.  Not  all  mothers  could  be  what  you  always 
say  she  was — they  simply  couldn't.  And  father  liked 

[38] 


ASCENT 

her,  so  I  suppose  I  shouldn't  have.  I  suppose  she  was 
as  bad — was  she? — as  Uncle  Joseph  Trail." 

"My  child,  it  doesn't  matter  what  your  mother  was 
or  wasn't.  She  was  your  mother,  and  she's  dead.  You 
must  think  of  her  with  love,  and  you  must  think  of  her 
love  for  you." 

"Why?"  Her  question  shot  as  straight  as  her  glance. 
"Just  because  she's  dead?  But  what  difference  can 
that  make?" 

Mr.  Lacy's  eyes  for  a  second  returned  her  look.  In 
the  reverberation  of  his  own  tone,  he  had  never  been 
more  presently  struck  by  the  fact  that  it  was  a  tone, 
limited  to  an  expression  of  personal  idiosyncrasies,  and 
not  an  assertion  of  principle.  The  tortuous  ways  of 
her  nature  had  never  seemed  to  him  more  visibly  to 
underlie  it,  nor  his  own  impotence  more  final,  in  the 
face  of  her  crystallisation  into  an  iron  attitude. 

"I  don't  know  that  it  can  make  any  difference  to 
her.  But  certainly  it  makes  some  difference  to  you." 

"How?  I  don't  understand.  Of  course  I  like  to 
walk  with  you  anywhere,  grandfather;  but  I'd  really 
much  rather  have  played  in  my  swing," — she  put 
back  her  heavy  hair  from  her  forehead.  "How  could 
it  make  any  difference  to  me  to  come  here?" 

"Because,  my  dear,  you'll  one  day  have  a  daughter 
of  your  own.  You'll  understand  then — you're  too 
little  now — that  to  respect  one's  mother  and  to  be 
dutiful  even  to  her  memory  is  one  of  the  rules  we 
can't  break.  Don't  forget  that.  It's  a  rule  which 
holds,  in  death  as  well  as  in  living.  One  day,  pussy, 
you'll  be  dead  too." 

Olive's  feet  continued  to  swing  evenly  against  the 
[39] 


ASCENT 

stone  on  which  she  sat.  "I  shan't  die,  myself.  It 
would  be  so  lonely  and  so  dirty." 

"Yes,  my  dear,  you  will."  Mr.  Lacy's  voice  had 
again  its  lower  note. 

"But  I  say  I  shan't." 

"Ah,  it's  not  a  question,  you  see,  of  what  you  say!" 

Her  feet  were  abruptly  still,  and  she  raised  to  her 
grandfather  a  face  which  had  a  sudden  pallor.  "But 
I  tell  you  I  shan't.  Why  should  I  have  to  die?  Has 
there  never  been  anyone  who  didn't  die — who  wouldn't 
die?  You'll  see — I  won't  die;  I  won't,  I  won't.  So 
there!  Have  you  got  any  of  those  nice  lemon  drops 
in  your  pocket?" 

She  had  bent  forward,  with  one  sunburnt  hand 
stretched  to  him;  her  grandfather  saw  her  eyes  pass 
beyond  him,  and  in  an  instant  she  drew  back  and 
straightened  herself,  with  the  abruptly  awkward  with 
drawal  of  childhood.  He  turned  and  saw  that  a  few 
feet  away,  advancing  from  the  gate  which  gave  on 
the  road,  a  young  man  was  approaching  them.  Mr. 
Lacy's  rapid  eyes  bent  for  the  space  of  a  moment  on 
him;  a  second  later  he  had  pulled  himself  to  his  feet 
and  waved  his  hand,  in  a  sudden  recognition. 

"But,  by  all  that's  wonderful,  it's  young  John- 
grown  up!  I'd  know  you  anywhere!  How  on  earth 
did  you  discover  me?" 

Young  Devon  had  paused  beside  Mr.  Lacy,  and  he 
met  his  grasp  with  a  cordiality  which  had  a  touch 
of  shyness.  His  general  impression  was  of  length  and 
leanness  and  his  body  lighter  than  seemed,  in  a  boy 
of  less  than  twenty,  sufficiently  solid.  He  held  his 
motor  cap  under  his  arm,  and  his  eyes,  clearly  grey, 
caught  the  light  which  penetrated  the  close  branches. 

[40] 


ASCENT 

Yes,  he'd  found  Mr.  Lacy,  and  rather  by  a  miracle, 
since  they'd  told  him,  at  the  house,  that  it  was  hopeless 
to  pursue  the  old  gentleman  and  his  granddaughter  in 
their  wanderings;  yes,  it  was  the  first  proofs  of  the 
jade  catalogue  he'd  come  about.  He  was  with  his 
father  for  a  week  and  Devon  had  made  him  motor 
down,  the  instant  the  sheets  arrived  from  the  printers, 
for  Mr.  Lacy's  comments.  Yes,  the  roads  were  bad 
enough,  and  he  had  the  keenest  recollection  of  Mr. 
Lacy — of  course — though  it  couldn't  be  less  than  eight 
or  ten  years  since,  at  Wickford,  he  had  first  seen  him. 

"And  here  you've  become  one  of  these  conquering 
youths  who's  going  to  upset  the  world — ah,  if  only 
you  could!  And  this,  you  know,  is  Olive.  Your 
father's  probably  told  you  about  her — yes?  Olive, 
come  here!" 

Mr.  Lacy  had  turned,  with  a  pride  which  he  never 
allowed  himself  to  exhibit  when  he  considered  it,  and 
faced  the  child.  It  was  the  first  time  that  he  had  ever 
noted  her  capacity  to  make  one  wait  and,  even  at  her 
age,  to  compel  attention.  Young  Devon's  smile,  as 
he  followed  Mr.  Lacy's  glance,  made  his  face  shyer 
than  before,  not  as  if  his  warmth  of  interest  were 
difficult  to  arouse  but  as  if  he  were  unaccustomed  to  ad 
mit  it.  Olive,  perched  in  her  raw  thinness  on  the  tomb 
stone,  regarded  them  with  an  equal  blankness.  Mr. 
Lacy's  wit  could  have  fancied  that  there  was  a  touch 
of  the  mystery  of  her  sex  in  her  immobility.  Her 
expression  was  stubborn  to  the  point  of  sullenness;  but 
it  could  not  conceal  the  passion  of  her  interest.  He 
felt  that  her  unwavering  gaze  saw  every  inch  of  the 
young  man,  his  thick  close  hair,  the  faint  delicacy  of 
his  throat,  the  kindness  of  his  mouth  and  the  ease  of 

[41] 


ASCENT 

his  rather  shabby  clothes.  She  saw  no  less  the  motor 
waiting  beyond  the  wall  and  the  vista  of  the  life  to 
which  it  led — a  life  of  mysterious  happinesses  and  lovely 
adornment,  half  fairy-tale  and  half  preconception;  an 
escape,  actual  and  thrilling,  from  all  the  enclosures 
of  Ware. 

"Come,  pussy,  come!  You're  to  shake  hands,  you 
know."  He  made  a  helpless  gesture.  "You  mustn't 
mind  her  manners.  She's  brought  up  by  us  two  men, 
you  see.  Olive,  you're  exceptionally  rude" — he  again 
broke  off,  confronting  the  child's  refusal.  "Little  girls 
are  such  odd  imps  ..." 

Young  Devon's  look  at  her  was  as  friendly  as  before. 
"Don't  bother  her,  please!  And  I  left  the  proofs  with 
your  son,  who  was  good  enough  to  say  he'd  give  them 
to  you.  If  father  may  have  them  again  in  three  days, 
by  post  .  .  ." 

"Of  course,  of  course."  Mr.  Lacy  nodded.  "What 
a  treat  I  shall  have  with  them  to-night!  Did  your 
father  get  the  Paris  jade  he  was  after?" 

"I  think  so — I'm  not  sure.  As  if  one  ever  knows, 
you  know,  which  particular  thing  father  is  after,  even 
if  he  get  it !" 

"Ah,  he's  colossal,  he  and  his  sensitivity — and  his 
drift!  But  you'll  come  back  with  us,  to  the  house, 
and  let  me  glance  at  the  first  pages  with  you,  before 
you  start  for  home?" 

"Thanks — no.  I've  sixty  miles  to  make  and  bad 
tires.  I  mustn't  run  it  close;  I've  so  little  time  here. 
I'm  due  in  New  York  again  to-morrow  night."  His 
eyes  again  played  on  the  dark  reticence  of  Olive's  face. 
"So  you  don't  think  she'll  make  friends?" 

"Olive,  for  the  last  time,  do  as  you're  told!"  Mr. 
[42] 


ASCENT 

Lacy  broke  into  irritation.  "You're  really  inexcusably 
naughty!" 

Young  Devon's  smile  had  suddenly  faded.  Mr. 
Lacy,  in  his  perpetual  scrutiny,  saw  his  look  touched 
with  an  abrupt  surprise,  an  incomprehension  so  rooted 
that  it  blent  strangely  with  his  obvious  immaturity. 
The  boy's  eyes  passed  rapidly  from  Olive  to  him  and 
back  to  Olive;  and  the  comparison  which  he  divined 
in  the  quick  transition  of  the  glance  made  Mr.  Lacy 
turn,  in  a  final  exasperation,  on  the  cramped,  obstinate 
figure.  As  he  did  so  his  eyes  caught,  beneath  her 
stiffened  legs,  the  name  on  the  stone  on  which  she 
sat.  His  own  face  changed. 

"Good  heavens,  child,  get  down!  I  didn't  see  where 
you  were  sitting.  If  that's  not  like  me;  to  bring  you 
here  on  a  theory  of  loyalty, — and  not  to  have  enough 
experience  of  loyalty  to  put  it  into  decent  execution! 
Get  down  at  once!  That's  your  mother's  grave  .  .  ." 

The  force  of  resistance  in  Olive  wilted  under  their 
eyes.  For  a  moment  she  peered  down,  trying  to 
decipher,  beneath  her  skirts,  the  letters  and  the  name; 
then  she  slid  inertly  from  the  stone,  and  with  a  final 
conquest  of  her  hesitation  she  approached  them  and 
raised  her  flushed  face. 

Devon,  with  a  word  of  excuse  for  her  and  the 
murmur  that  he  himself,  when  he  was  little,  had  always 
detested  manners,  had  immediately  taken  her  hand  and 
held  it.  He  was  evidently  again  at  the  mercy  of  his 
natural  inarticulateness  and  of  a  delicacy  of  considera 
tion  as  inhibitive  as  his  reticence  and  which  dealt  even 
with  a  child's  exaggerations.  Mr.  Lacy,  as  he  speech 
lessly  watched  them,  did  not  know  which  of  the  two 
astonished  him  more.  It  was  surprising  enough  that 

[43l 


ASCENT 

Olive  should  affect  in  any  way  the  interest  of  a  boy 
of  nineteen,  at  the  most  crowded  time  of  his  college 
life  and  living  in  a  world  of  privilege  where  such 
incidents  were  scarcely  noticeable;  but  it  was  still 
more  surprising  that  she  herself  should  be  so  affected. 
He  had  never  seen  her  produce  a  look  which  was  so 
clearly  the  result  of  feeling.  Her  eyes  clung  to  Devon's 
with  a  heat  of  desperation  and  of  anger  at  her  own 
awkwardnesses  and  ignorances.  A  sudden  sensation 
of  pity  stirred  in  Mr.  Lacy;  yet  he  recognised,  with 
his  fineness  in  the  discovery  of  such  indications,  that 
it  was  a  compassion  larger  than  his  compassion  for  her. 
It  was  rather  a  pity  for  the  operation  of  that  force 
resident  in  her,  which  could  create  in  others  the  stir 
of  feeling,  and  bring  them,  through  her,  into  touch 
with  what  he  remembered,  across  his  years,  as  the 
flame  of  existence. 


IV 

IT  had  been  in  Olive's  twentieth  year,  after  a  gradual 
failure  through  the  early  winter  months,  that  old 
Lacy  fell  into  his  last  illness. 
As  November  and  December  had  passed  he  had 
been  more  and  more  frequently  by  his  fire,  with  his 
recollections  growing  not  dimmer  but  slower  in  their 
pace.  He  was  still  as  constant  in  his  assertions,  to 
his  granddaughter,  that  his  mind  was  more  acrid  and 
less  inclined  to  foolish  hypocrisies  than  ever.  He 
dissected  even  his  nascent  atrophy  and  told  her  cease 
lessly,  as  she  sat  beside  him  with  one  pointed  foot  on 
the  fender  and  her  pointed  chin  propped  on  her  hand, 
how  ignoble  the  decline  of  energy  was.  It  was  her 
absent  smile  which  inspired,  as  he  also  freely  asserted, 
his  only  regret  at  quitting  life.  In  the  last  year  or 
two,  with  her  gradual  entrance  into  womanhood,  she 
had  given  him  the  sympathy  of  attention  for  which 
he  had  always  searched.  She  was  no  longer  an 
audience;  she  was  a  woman  whose  responses  and  the 
intelligence  of  whose  differences  of  opinion  one  could 
count  on.  "Don't  think  I'm  so  credulous  as  to  believe 
I  know  anything  about  you,"  he  told  her  constantly. 
"You  probably  give  me  only  the  illusion  of  sympathy. 
But  you  see  that's  the  fun  of  consciously  permitting 
illusions  —  one  can  believe  in  them;"  and  Olive 
responded  as  frequently  by  the  same  smile  and  the 
same  silence,  while  with  her  quick  competence  she 
shook  up  his  pillow  or  stirred  his  broth. 

[45] 


ASCENT 

Mr.  Lacy  was  always  conscious  of  a  sense  of  effort 
when,  in  retrospect,  he  turned  back  to  the  years  which 
had  produced  her  maturity.  There  had  been  so  little 
of  a  traceable  antecedence  in  her  outer  life.  He 
remembered  the  opinion  he  had  formed  in  her  child 
hood  that  her  development  would  be  not  so  much 
a  growth  as  a  gradual  disclosure  of  a  nature  which 
had  a  certain  finality  and  completeness.  He  had  never 
discovered  in  her — this  he  could  definitely  say — any 
trace  of  responsiveness  to  forces  other  than  her  own. 
It  was  Philip's  credulity  that  when  she  veered  to  his 
way  of  doing  something  she  had  a  change  of  heart,  and 
his  father  could  imagine  the  confidence  with  which  he 
thanked  heaven  for  it;  but  he  himself  recognised  her 
impermeability  no  less  than  he  recognised  the  harsh 
ness  of  her  determination.  He  recollected  vividly  one 
night  a  year  before,  when  they  had  strolled  arm  and 
arm  up  and  down  the  porch — he  had  not  for  long  got 
beyond  this  boundary — and  when  he  had  suddenly 
broken  out:  "The  only  dull  thing  about  you,  my  dear, 
is  that  you  can  always  be  explained!" 

She  had  looked  up  at  him  in  a  puzzled  silence,  with 
her  face  first  stiffening  and  then  flushing,  and  he  had 
continued:  "One  always  knows,  I  mean,  that  you  do 
nothing  and  feel  nothing  without  a  reason.  Oh,  I 
don't  know  your  reasons,  nor  do  I  want  to;  but  any 
invariable  reason  is  a  bore." 

Mr.  Lacy  could  still  feel  the  abruptness  of  the 
gesture  with  which  she  had  withdrawn  her  arm  from 
his,  abandoning  him  to  his  weak  legs  several  feet  from 
his  chair;  and  he  could  still  trace  the  defiant  set  of 
her  shoulders,  as  she  turned  into  the  house.  As  his 
meditation  became  more  and  more  his  sole  activity, 

U6] 


ASCENT 

his  memory  could  see,  in  the  flames  of  the  coals  in 
his  grate,  still  farther.  Any  breath  of  her  inner  feel 
ing  always  took  him,  at  a  bound,  to  the  hot  afternoon 
in  the  churchyard  and  the  nascent  force  in  the  face 
she  had  shown,  not  to  him,  but  to  the  delicacy  of 
quality  which  her  childish  instinct  had  leapt  to 
recognise  in  young  Devon.  He  had  not  forgotten  his 
predictive  sense  of  her  power  to  create  sensibility  in 
others.  One  reason  for  this,  as  he  knew,  was  that 
he  had  never  seen  it  duplicated.  She  had  for  him  a 
scrupulous  devotion  which  included  no  permission 
to  enter  the  processes  of  her  feeling.  Her  tenderness 
itself  was  too  denned  a  tenderness.  As  she  had 
grown  out  of  childhood,  with  the  early  intellectual 
development  of  the  American  girl,  he  could  say  that 
he  had  formed  her,  if  only  because  her  perfect 
duplication  of  his  attitude  had  been,  ever  since  she 
was  old  enough  to  take  an  attitude,  the  scandal  of 
Philip  and  the  Trails.  But  he  had  invariably  the 
idea  that  in  spite  of  the  flawlessness  of  this  imitation 
and  the  way  her  analyses  and  ironies  went  him,  as 
he  said,  one  better,  she  was  nevertheless  using  it  all 
as  an  attitude,  and  not  as  a  conviction  of  unconviction. 
Her  real  attention  was  in  her  silent  self-absorption. 
He  could  imagine  no  more  complete  exemplification  of 
individualism.  It  seemed,  to  his  literary  sense,  that 
that  cult  of  the  personal  so  apparent  in  the  women  of 
her  nation  had  flowered  in  her  restless  intelligence. 
She  had  what  he  termed  to  her  a  thoroughly  trained 
possessiveness.  To  see  a  thing  and  to  understand  it 
was  to  own  it;  and  to  own  was  her  point,  whether  the 
acquisition  were  mental  or  material.  There  was  as 
little  relaxation  in  the  grip  of  her  insistence  as  there 

[47l 


ASCENT 

was  change  in  the  months  of  the  year  at  Ware;  and 
while  he  watched  her  grow  into  the  clear  outlines  of 
character,  and  as  her  silences  deepened  with  the  evi 
dently  longer  reverberations  of  her  thoughts,  Mr. 
Lacy  felt  that  her  inflexibility  could  obtain  even  in 
the  starved  circumstances  of  her  surroundings. 

This  power  to  seize  and  to  disregard  all  she  did 
not  want  had  given  her,  as  he  realised,  a  remarkable 
steadiness.  He  explained  to  himself  in  this  way  the 
surprising  justice  of  her  judgments.  There  had  been, 
at  one  time,  a  possibility  of  sending  her  away  to  spend 
a  last  year  at  school  and  to  prepare  her  for  some  post 
of  teaching.  Philip  had  ventured  on  a  speculation 
which  was  a  foregone  failure,  and  the  question  dropped 
almost  as  soon  as  it  was  raised.  But  Mr.  Lacy  had 
had,  in  Olive's  answer  to  his  query  if  she  were  dis 
appointed,  another  of  his  swift  glimpses  into  the  dim 
region  of  her  mind.  What  would  be  the  good  of  her 
going,  she  had  briefly  said;  the  demonstrable  fact  of 
how  little  she  could  get  out  of  such  an  extension  made 
any  regret  on  his  part  or  hers  futile.  Of  course  she 
meant  ultimately  to  get  away — he  must  see  that;  but 
not  to  a  girl's  school,  where  the  world  would  be  as 
restricted  as  the  world  of  the  Ware  street.  The 
school  might  fit  her  for  a  larger  world — she  supposed 
that  was  true;  but  how?  By  teaching  her  to  teach 
or  to  be  a  second-rate  secretary;  and  she  asked  him 
to  consider  her  in  such  eventualities.  There  were  of 
course  in  Ware  girls  who  in  harder  circumstances  and 
with  half  her  intelligence  got  away.  But  they  had 
nothing  in  themselves  to  limit  the  conditions  of  their 
emancipation.  They  didn't  know  bad  things  from 
good,  and  their  ambitions  were  merely  brief  and 

[48] 


ASCENT 

impulsive.  When  she  went,  she  wanted  to  go  in  her 
own  way,  to  a  life  which  was  on  her  own  terms;  and 
meanwhile  she  had  no  self-pity — she  assured  him  he 
could  be  forever  sure  of  that.  Living  with  Philip, 
as  he  very  well  knew,  knocked  such  softness  out  of 
one.  When  she  went,  she  would  go  finally,  to  oppor 
tunities  and  surroundings  which  fitted  her.  Let  them 
wait  for  a  year  or  so,  and  see. 

Her  patience  was  all  the  stranger  to  him  because 
of  his  knowledge — and,  as  he  realised,  his  alone — of 
the  white  heat  of  her  impatience.  Sometimes  he  had 
the  sense  that  not  so  much  she  as  the  youth  in  her 
watched  him  fail  with  slow  calculation.  It  was  never 
that  she  was  hurried;  he  felt  that  she  saw  farther 
than  he  in  her  recognition  that  when  he  died  she 
would  be  in  many  ways  worse  off,  with  the  burden  of 
the  authority  of  the  little  household  and  her  father 
fully  on  her  hands.  She  had  none  of  the  enthusiasm 
of  her  years.  The  classic  stir  of  the  word  freedom 
did  not  lift  her  beyond  her  hard  recognition  that  any 
freedom  she  achieved  must  be  crippled  and  partial. 
But  it  was  at  times  miraculous  to  him  that  she  could 
so  contain  not  only  her  energy  but  the  sense  he  had 
seen  gradually  develop  in  her  of  a  fine  susceptibility 
to  beauty.  He  had  been  inexorable  in  his  effort  to 
teach  her  to  reject  all  but  the  best  and  to  establish 
an  aristocracy  of  taste  in  her  choices.  She  would 
go  without  a  dress  for  a  year,  so  as  to  buy  for  the 
little  sitting  room  a  print  he  and  she  had  unearthed 
or  to  send  the  money  she  had  saved  to  New  York 
for  a  good  material,  with  lustre  and  softness  in  its 
folds.  Once  or  twice  he  had  taken  her  for  the  day 
to  Wickford,  to  lunch  with  the  older  Devon,  who  was 

[49J 


ASCENT 

more  and  more  morosely  concentrated  in  his  work; 
and  it  had  surprised  both  men  to  see  her  light  unerr 
ingly  on  the  best  jades  and  on  their  most  subtle  and 
inconspicuous  beauties.  She  had  frequently  shivered, 
in  this  same  winter,  under  a  coat  which  was  too  thin. 
With  old  Norah's  help  he  had  ordered  from  Wickford 
a  little  fur  jacket  for  her,  and  had  spread  it  on  his 
knees  to  surprise  her,  one  night,  in  their  habitual 
vigil  by  the  fire.  Olive  had  run  her  hand  smoothly 
over  the  fur,  while  she  reproached  him  for  his  extrava 
gance;  he  was  entirely  too  good  and  utterly  outrageous, 
she  had  said;  and  while  she  talked  and  protested,  it 
had  flashed  through  Mr.  Lacy's  imagination  that  her 
hand  was  a  test  of  the  quality  of  what  it  touched,  and 
that  the  fur  looked  coarse  and  poor  beneath  it. 

He  was  scarcely  surprised  when  she  raised  her  head, 
with  a  motion  of  finality.  "It's  no  use  to  you  or  to 
me,  grandfather;  let's  admit  it.  You're  trying  to  make 
out  that  you've  a  right  to  spend  the  money,  and  that 
for  it  you're  getting  what  you  want  for  me.  All  the 
time,  dearest,  you  see  as  well  as  I  do  that  what  I  need 
are  sables.  Don't  let's  deny  it.  Your  goodness  doesn't 
make  this  anything  but  second-class.  You  must  just 
courageously  go  without  the  pleasure,  and  I  must  go 
without  the  coat." 

"But  you'll  be  cold,  my  child." 

"No  colder  than  I've  been,"  she  retorted;  "and  I'd 
rather  be  cold  than  ugly." 

He  looked  at  her  with  the  intensity  which  had  sur 
vived  all  his  physical  depletion.  "Should  you?  Youth 
doesn't  like  brutal  pain;  and  this  wind's  real  suffering." 

"But  of  course  I  should!" 

"Yes — I  know,  I  see;  but  it's  wonderful  to  me,"  he 
[50] 


ASCENT 

searched  for  his  phrase,  "how  your  love  of  what's 
lovely  has  grown  with  nothing  to  feed  on!" 

"But  I  myself  have  fed  it,"  she  had  all  her  usual 
clearness. 

"Yet  what's  so  extraordinary  is  that  you've  never 
seen  that  one  doesn't  feed  it.  You  don't  understand 
that  the  realest  sense  of  beauty  is  feeling;  that  it's  by 
living  the  life  of  feeling  that  it's  created  and  stimulated. 
No,  pussy;  you've  no  imagination." 

"I've  had  the  imagination,"  she  smiled,  with  her 
assurance,  "to  own  in  this  dreadful  little  house  all  I've 
had  to  do  without." 

"Yes,  so  long  as  it  was  sables.  But  you've  never 
imagined  the  unimaginable.  What  imagination  you've 
got  is  all  along  tactile  lines.  You  must  grasp  things, 
you  see.  You  grasp  them  by  your  very  rejections; 
you  grasp  them  by  forcing  them  to  recognise  you.  No, 
no,  my  dear.  To  look  at  you  you're  all  line — line, 
which  is  the  quintessence  of  sensitiveness;  yet  you're 
not  sensitive.  You've  a  privileged  apprehension  about 
life;  yet  you're  not  alive." 

"Do  you  think  I  haven't  been  alive  in  my  hatred?" 
Her  voice  had  a  sudden  vehemence.  "Do  you  think 
there's  been  a  night  that  I've  gone  to  sleep  without 
detesting  what  I  detest  with  all  the  force  in  me?  that 
I  haven't  despised  not  only  this  house  but  every  house 
down  the  street?  that  I  haven't  felt  the  horror  of  their 
all  being  alike?" 

"That  I  admit."  Mr.  Lacy's  tone  was  dry.  "But 
you've  always  been  the  sole  object  in  the  house.  It 
all  comes  back  to  you:  that's  it." 

"And  to  whom  should  it  come  back?" 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment  with  his  eyes,  in  the 


ASCENT 

gradual  suffusion  of  his  age,  set  on  the  coals.  "Just 
what  is  it,  Olive,  that  you  want?" 

"Want?"  She  had  raised  her  head  quickly,  and  he 
had  never  heard  her  speak  more  finally.  The  fingers 
of  the  hand  clasped  on  her  knee  closed  sharply.  "But 
I  want  experience!" 

Mr.  Lacy  nodded.  He  had  lived  with  this  idea  close 
to  the  root  of  his  conjectures  about  her;  yet  her  con 
firmation  of  the  veracity  of  his  conclusions  gave  him  a 
moment  of  ironic  regret. 

"But  don't  you  see  it's  simply  no  use — just  experi 
ence?"  His  look  searched  her.  "Your  experience  will 
stop  dead  if  it's  only  subjective.  You  yourself  must 
be  it.  You've  got  to  change,  you've  got  to  grow;  and 
you  don't  grow,  pussy." 

"But  I  grow  in  my  own  ways;  don't  you  see?"  She 
was  quick  and  triumphant.  "I  get  all  the  more — and 
far  more  vividly — because  I  follow  them.  I'm  all  the 
richer  because  I  won't  pay." 

He  sighed.  "Well,  there  it  is.  At  my  age  I've 
nothing  left  but  a  habit  of  mind;  at  yours,  you've 
got  a  philosophy.  I  grant  it — your  appetite's  a 
science." 

"You  see — you  admit  it!"  she  had  laid  her  hand 
lightly  on  his. 

"But  don't  forget  that  it's  a  science  only  of  appetite," 
he  had  ended,  with  his  amused  eyes  on  the  determina 
tion  of  her  face. 

He  had  had  one  definite  interest,  in  the  year  Olive 
was  eighteen,  and  that  was  his  final  share,  with  Devon, 
in  the  completion  of  the  catalogue  of  the  Wickford 
jades.  In  recent  years  he  had  more  and  more  com 
pared  Devon's  solitude  with  his  own  and  he  had  grown 

[52] 


ASCENT 

in  his  sardonic  sense  of  the  artificiality  of  the  one  and 
the  inexorability  of  the  other.  It  was  not  only  that 
Devon  saw,  from  time  to  time,  the  progress  of  life  in 
his  boy — that  nice  boy,  as  old  Lacy  always  character 
ised  him,  or  that  the  burden  of  his  erratic  wife  at 
least  linked  him  to  the  world  by  the  realities  of  its 
annoyance.  Devon  was  unable  to  rid  himself  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  in  his  way  famous,  any  more  than  he 
could  deny  that  he  had  had  money  and  position  to 
disregard  in  his  voluntary  renouncement.  One  never 
lost  the  consciousness,  as  he  put  it  to  Olive,  of  the 
things  waiting  around  the  corner  for  him  and  the 
privileges  he  could  think  so  unimportant  as  to  condemn 
them.  Whenever  he  took  her  with  him  to  Wickford  he 
could  see,  by  the  quick  shift  of  her  eyes  and  the  rapid 
deductions  of  her  attention,  how  she  measured  this. 
She  never  laid  particular  stress  on  these  visits.  Yet 
Mr.  Lacy's  conviction  of  her  inner  plans  and  the  drive 
of  her  inner  purposes  was  immensely  augmented  by  the 
way  she  extracted,  on  each  occasion,  every  information 
and  every  possible  opportunity  to  enlarge  her  world. 
If  she  scrutinised  the  jades,  she  also  scrutinised 
Devon,  as  he  could  see  by  the  impatient  contraction  of 
her  eyebrows  at  the  stupidities  in  his  cleverness;  and 
she  scrutinised  no  less  the  minutest  habits  of  the  house, 
down  to  the  way  in  which  the  exquisite  Venetian  finger 
bowls  were  placed  on  the  torn  tablecloth. 

Mr.  Lacy  never  measured  how  far  this  computation 
was  from  understanding  until  one  morning,  when  he 
and  Olive  arrived  to  spend  a  few  final  hours  with 
Devon  over  the  proof  sheets,  they  found  that  the 
younger  Devon  was  in  the  little  entry  to  greet  them. 
He  had  come  up  from  New  York  the  night  before,  at 

[53l 


ASCENT 

his  father's  summons,  to  clarify  for  them  an  obscure 
point  the  facts  of  which  he  had  verified  at  the  Metro 
politan  Museum,  and  Mr.  Lacy  was  immediately  aware 
of  the  touch  of  change  which  his  lounging  figure 
brought  to  the  cramped,  close  rooms.  Olive  had  held 
out  her  hand  to  him,  with  her  swift  decisiveness;  and 
since  they  needed  her  help  only  at  intervals,  she  had 
spent  most  of  the  morning  wandering  to  and  fro  in  the 
little  garden.  As  the  three  men  bent  over  the  papers 
on  Devon's  table,  Mr.  Lacy  felt  that  his  companions 
watched  no  less  than  he  for  the  occasional  glimpses, 
through  the  open  window,  of  her  finely  set  shoulders 
and  the  gleam  of  the  sun  on  her  hair  as  she  moved. 
Movement,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  with  his  eyes  wander 
ing  from  the  sheets  in  front  of  him,  expressed  her 
essential  quality.  It  penetrated  even  her  silences  and 
her  suspense.  Her  concentration  saved  her  from  rest 
lessness.  Her  motions  conveyed  not  merely  displace 
ment  but  a  smooth  relentlessness  of  progress;  and  as 
she  paused  in  the  sunlight,  he  could  trace  even  in  her 
immobility  the  beat  of  her  vitality. 

At  luncheon  she  was  as  definitely  cool  in  her  manner 
and  as  definitely  separate.  She  smiled,  with  young 
Devon,  over  the  renewal  of  their  acquaintance;  but  she 
had  none  of  the  challenge  which  a  girl  of  her  age,  deal 
ing  with  a  man  surrounded  by  a  glamour  of  the  freest 
life,  might  be  expected  to  show.  She  turned  on  him 
the  same  eyes  she  turned  on  his  father  and  on  the 
jades;  but  old  Lacy  had  had,  during  the  hour,  a  definite 
extension  of  his  view  of  her  future.  As  he  watched  the 
curiosity  with  which  Devon  met  her,  there  had  flashed 
into  his  memory  the  qualities  which,  a  few  years  before, 
had  been  implicit  in  his  face.  His  mental  and  his 

[54] 


ASCENT 

physical  signs  had  all  become  characterised  and  accen 
tuated.  He  had  the  same  light  touch  of  charm,  the 
same  simplicities  of  reserve;  his  hands  were  a  little 
longer  and  browner  and  his  air  of  distinctiveness 
more  marked.  Mr.  Lacy  knew  the  traceable  facts  con 
cerning  him;  of  his  years  at  the  Beaux  Arts,  after  col 
lege,  and  the  brilliancy  of  his  record  there,  and  of  the 
rapidity  of  his  rise  to  importance,  with  his  own  firm 
of  architects,  in  New  York.  Was  it  a  distinctiveness, 
he  wondered,  which  matched  the  strong  flavour  of  his 
inner  distinctiveness?  or  were  not  the  two,  in  the  cur 
rent  custom  of  his  countrymen,  wholly  contradictory? 
Had  he  the  capacity  to  live  by  the  exactions  of  his 
evident  taste,  and  to  test  the  responsiveness  of  his 
imagination  by  actualities?  Whatever  had  happened 
in  his  inner  world,  the  old  man  concluded,  he  had  kept 
and  developed  its  quality.  His  growth  would  probably 
always  be  a  consequent  one;  and  he  would  continue 
to  listen  to  his  father  with  the  same  lightly  amused 
tolerance  and  to  finger  the  white  jades  with  the  same 
reticent  pleasure. 

It  was  in  his  granddaughter's  return  to  the  friend 
liness  of  the  smile  with  which,  from  time  to  time,  young 
Devon's  eyes  appealed  to  her,  that  Mr.  Lacy  had 
another  measure  of  her.  There  was  no  obvious  re 
sponse  in  her.  Her  instinct  was  trained  and  tamed 
to  caution.  But  he  had  the  clearest  conviction  that 
the  delicacy  and  susceptiveness  of  Devon's  look  con 
fronted  her  like  an  unconscious  test.  She  returned 
to  it  the  complexity  of  a  girl's  state  of  mind — indiffer 
ence  and  calculation,  curiosity  and  negligence;  but  it 
seemed  to  Mr.  Lacy's  wit  that  it  was  Devon's  fineness 
which  marked  her  own  incapacity.  .  .  . 

[55] 


ASCENT 

Mr.  Lacy  had  fallen,  on  a  January  afternoon  when 
the  cold  was  bitterest  and  the  early  dusk  hung  like  a 
veil  of  ice  in  the  thin  grey  air,  over  the  arm  of  his  chair, 
with  his  limp  figure  suddenly  divested  of  the  springs  of 
action  and  intelligence.  It  was  Olive  who,  an  hour 
later,  found  him,  and  who  dealt  with  the  situation  with 
her  inerrant  readiness.  She  instructed  Philip  and  Norah 
how  to  carry  him  to  his  room,  she  dispersed  the  two 
or  three  inquisitive  neighbours,  and  she  heard  the 
doctor's  verdict.  It  would  be  absurd  to  assume  the 
expense  of  a  nurse,  she  told  Philip,  since  he  could  live 
at  most  only  for  a  day  or  so;  and  with  the  same  calcu 
lation  she  warned  him  that,  as  his  father's  mind  was 
likely  to  clarify,  he  had  better  do  his  utmost  not  to 
irritate  him  by  any  parade  of  emotion,  not  to  call  in 
his  querulous  tones  to  Norah  and  not  to  bang  the 
sitting  room  door. 

It  was  not  until  the  next  morning  that  Mr.  Lacy, 
wearily  lifting  his  lids,  saw  the  blur  of  mist  which 
hung  on  them  change  and  crystallise  into  her  thin 
upright  figure  beside  his  bed.  He  traced  vaguely  the 
carriage  of  her  head,  the  whiteness  of  her  face,  and 
finally  the  penetrating  attention  of  her  eyes.  The  fixity 
of  her  look  recalled  him  to  the  fact  of  how  repellent 
the  decay  of  life  must  be,  and  made  him  dimly  aware 
of  the  sudden  angles  which  his  face  must  have  assumed 
and  of  the  rigid  immobility  of  his  body. 

"So — you're  here!"  he  said  faintly.  "That  incom 
petent  doctor's  not  about,  is  he?" 

"Oh,  no,  grandfather;  he  came  last  night;  there  was 
nothing  more  for  him  to  do." 

Mr.  Lacy's  eyes  sharpened.  "I  suppose  that  I'm 
dying?" 

[56] 


ASCENT 

She  laid  her  hand  briefly  on  his  motionless  one.  "Of 
course,  my  dear;  you  know  you've  always  told  me 
that  it  was  foolish — that  it  was  a  personal  impu 
dence — to  take  from  people  the  knowledge  of  such 
things.  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Lacy  breathed  evenly  for  a  few  seconds.  His 
lustreless  eyes  appeared  to  follow  the  sunlight  which 
quivered,  through  the  closed  blinds,  on  the  shabby 
carpet.  His  thoughts  passed,  with  unaccustomed 
heaviness,  from  his  detestation  of  Wilton  designs  to 
the  fact  that  when  the  light  lay  like  this,  in  the  Ware 
winters,  it  meant  that  the  day  was  so  breathlessly  cold 
and  so  brilliantly  still  that  the  mere  warmth  of  one's 
body,  in  defiance  of  such  a  temperature,  was  marvellous 
and  exciting.  His  mind  circled  listlessly  about  this 
physical  memory,  and  then  his  glance  strayed  back  to 
the  motionlessness  of  the  coverlet  across  him. 

"He's  an  extraordinary  fool,  that  doctor,"  he 
observed. 

"Yes;"  she  nodded;  "but  on  the  whole  not  so 
great  a  fool — do  you  think? — as  Mr.  Basker.  He,  of 
course,  wanted  to  come  to  you  at  once.  He  said  to 
me  that,  now  you  were  ill,  you  might  be  converted  to 
a  change  of  heart.  Of  course  all  he  really  wants  to 
do" — her  brows  drew  together — "is  to  have  a  chance 
to  condemn  you." 

Mr.  Lacy's  lips  were  touched  with  a  faint  amuse 
ment.  "Don't  deny  him  his  rights!  Don't  you  see 
that  for  the  first  time  he  feels  himself  my  superior? 
Oh,  yes,  Basker's  a  marvel.  He  has  imagination  and 
subtlety.  He's  been  wise  enough  to  see  that  the  faith 
which  is  inexplicable  is  always  invincible.  Dear  me, 
yes.  It's  effrontery,  if  you  want,  but  it's  an  effrontery 

[571 


ASCENT 

which  works  with  a  beautiful  efficiency;  and  the 
wonderful  part  is  that  he's  right." 

"Right?  Now,  grandfather" — she  made  a  gesture 
of  impatience — "you're  not  going  to  lose  all  your 
quality,  just  because  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Lacy  took  her  up,  in  his  dim  voice.  "Just 
because  I'm  dying?  I  haven't,  pussy,  the  least  idea 
what  I'm  going  to  lose,  and  Basker  has.  Don't  you 
see?  He's  won  out  and  I  haven't.  I've  nothing,  after 
eighty  years  of  it;  he's  got  a  prejudice  strong  enough 
to  be  a  belief.  Yes — it's  my  perception,  by  heaven, 
which  has  done  for  me!" 

Olive's  sudden  movement  of  tenderness  had  a  touch 
of  awkwardness.  "You've  had  a  hard  enough  time." 

Mr.  Lacy's  glance  fixed  her. 

"Come,  my  dear,  you're  lyrical,  you're  absurd!  I've 
had  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  didn't  believe  enough  in 
anything  to  have  a  hard  time  because  of  it.  No,  I'm 
inexcusable.  I've  had  to  live  the  smallest  life — and 
I've  understood  the  terrible  difference  between  small- 
ness  and  concentration.  Yet  I've  been  content  to  be 
passionately  bored;  I've  been  so  inefficient  that  even 
my  mind  has  failed  me,"  his  voice  hesitated  and  broke, 
"and  years  and  years  since  all  my  thoughts  turned  into 
caricature  .  .  ." 

He  closed  his  eyes.  It  was  evident  that  his  sense 
of  an  accumulated  weariness  of  years,  in  all  their  sepa 
rate  hours  and  moments,  broke  over  him  like  a  sea. 
Olive's  eyes  could  trace  the  actual  passage,  across  his 
face,  of  the  shadow  of  heaviness  which  mounted  to  his 
brain.  The  thin  threads  which  held  him  quivered  and 
strained  under  the  pressure ;  and  she  felt  the  imminence 
of  a  change  so  close  that  she  raised  her  voice,  hurriedly. 

[58] 


ASCENT 

"Grandfather,  you  must  rouse  yourself!  Come,  just 
for  a  moment  .  .  .  there's  something  I  must  ask  you!" 

"Well?"    His  lids  lifted  again,  with  a  weaker  effort. 

"How  can  I  manage?  That's  what  I  want  you  to 
tell  me;  what  am  I  to  do?" 

"I'm  not  embarrassed  by  my  death,  my  child."  He 
tried  to  make  his  habitual  gesture  of  irritation.  "Don't 
talk  like  your  father.  I've  faced  all  its  eventualities." 
He  eyed  her  for  a  second  with  a  firmer  fixity  of  atten 
tion.  "Do?  You  know  perfectly  well  what  you  mean 
to  do." 

Olive  was  as  instant  as  he.  "Of  course  I  know.  All 
I'm  uncertain  of  is  how  you've  arranged  about  the 
money." 

Mr.  Lacy  appeared  to  consider.  "You  must  get 
away  at  once,  of  course.  I've  left  you  everything." 

"Get  away  to  teach  or  to  work  in  a  shop?"  She  had 
bent  nearer  him.  "No,  grandfather,  you  really  must  open 
your  eyes  for  a  second!  I  shan't  ever  do  with  any 
half  measures — you  know  that.  If  the  money's  mine, 
can  I  draw  on  the  principal  as  long  as  I  may  need  to; 
until,  that  is,  I  marry?" 

He  again  tried  to  keep  his  attention  on  her.  "Until 
you  marry?  I  don't  see." 

"It's  surprising  you  don't;  what  on  earth  can  I  do 
but  marry?  and  whom  can  I  marry  but  John  Devon?" 

"So!"  Mr.  Lacy  had  a  sudden  touch  of  his  dryness. 
"So  that's  it!" 

"What  else  could  it  possibly  be?"  She  straightened 
the  sheet  with  her  quick  touch.  "Surely  you  must  have 
worked  it  out  as  I  have!  I've  no  possibilities  to  marry 
anyone  else." 

"I  suppose  not  .  .  ."     Mr.  Lacy  wavered,  and  his 
[59] 


ASCENT 

eyes  suddenly  cleared  with  energy.  "No,  my  dear, 
don't  do  it!" 

"Don't  marry  him?     Why  not?" 

He  tried  to  shake  his  immovable  head,  and  his  eyes 
took  up  the  negation  and  expressed  it,  with  unconscious 
pathos.  "One  doesn't  argue  with  people  as  far  down 
the  hill  as  I  am,  pussy.  Give  me  at  least  the  pre 
rogatives  of  dying.  Take  my  word  for  it  ...  don't 
marry  him." 

"But  really  you  must  tell  me,  grandfather.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  for  a  thousand  reasons,  but  one  will  do.  He'd 
make  you  unhappy."  He  frowned  at  the  assurance  of 
her  look.  "Yes,  my  dear,  he  would.  I  don't  see  how 
— I'm  weary  enough  of  time  as  it  is,  and  I  can't  see 
down  the  future.  But  he'd  make  you  unhappy  because 
your  only  happiness  is  in  your  own  terms;  he'd  make 
you  unhappy,"  he  searched  for  the  end  of  his  thought, 
"because  he's  too  good  for  you." 

She  caught  him  up  sharply.  "But  it's  my  only 
chance,  to  marry  him;  oh,  I  don't  mean  to  sound 
unkind  to  you,  but  wouldn't  it  be  far  unkinder  to  wait 
until  your  back  was  turned  to  contradict  you?  I  must 
marry,  and  at  once.  I've  lost  enough  precious  time, 
as  it  is!" 

Mr.  Lacy  gave  an  inaudible  murmur,  and  closed  his 
eyes  again.  Through  the  thickening  haze  of  his  intel 
ligence  he  had  no  longer  the  particular  sense  of  what 
she  said  but  of  its  familiarity.  He  was  conscious  of 
hearing  the  echo  of  all  she  had  assimilated.  The 
thought  drifted  through  his  brain,  with  the  dissective 
habit  which  was  his  strongest  link  with  consciousness, 
that  the  full  determination  of  her  tone  was  a  testimony 
not  only  to  her  reaction  against  Philip's  indecision  and 

[60] 


ASCENT 

the  fallacy  of  Rebecca's  sacrifice.  It  was  also  the 
penalty  of  his  own  undirected  force.  Such  revulsions 
of  character  as  hers  should  be  taught  illusion.  He 
remembered  he  had  often  told  himself  that  romanti 
cism  alone  could  have  saved  her;  and  the  reflection 
seemed  to  him,  in  his  dimmed  state,  like  a  last  flare 
of  his  irony. 

He  gathered  his  strength  and  again  raised  his  heavy 
lids.  As  his  perception  cleared  enough  to  meet  her 
eyes,  he  realised  that  the  immobility  with  which  Olive 
was  watching  him  had  in  it  a  peculiar  significance.  She 
bent  an  inch  nearer,  when  his  scattered  energy  braced 
itself,  as  if  she  seized  at  once  on  this  clearer  possibility 
to  deal  with  him. 

"Tell  me — I  should  so  like  to  know,"  she  broke  out 
abruptly — "what  does  it  feel  like  to  die?" 

Mr.  Lacy  still  returned  her  gaze.  "Feel  like?  I 
don't  understand." 

"Yes,  what  does  it  feel  like  to  realise  that  you're 
slipping  into  nothing,  with  every  second  that  passes? 
Now  you  can  see  and  speak,  you  can  feel  and  hear; 
but  every  time  the  clock  ticks  you're  a  second  nearer! 
I  should  think  it  would  be  dreadfully  strange.  .  .  ." 

She  paused,  flushed  with  the  concentration  of  her 
interest.  Mr.  Lacy  was  able  to  comprehend  this 
much;  and  the  stiffening  mask  of  his  face  was  touched 
for  an  instant  with  the  malignity  which  had  always 
flavoured  his  authority. 

"My  dear  child" — he  hesitated,  but  clearly  from  the 
pressure  of  his  thoughts  rather  than  from  his  debility, 
"what  on  earth's  to  become  of  you!" 

Olive's  eagerness  dropped  as  suddenly  as  it  had 
risen:  "Of  me?" 

[61] 


ASCENT 

"Yes.  You're  such  a  surprising  soul.  You're  all 
egoism,  and  yet  you  relate  nothing  to  yourself.  You 
speak  as  if  you  were  the  one  person  quit  of  it — of  this 
grotesque  necessity  to  die."  He  had  a  flash  of  his 
light  ease.  "Don't  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  you're 
dying  as  inevitably  as  I;  and  don't  talk  so  impersonally 
of  one  second  less." 

She  did  not  speak  at  once;  and  even  in  his  blunted 
state  Mr.  Lacy  was  aware  of  the  confused  flow  of  feel 
ing  in  her  silence.  The  hurrying  tick  of  the  china 
clock  on  the  mantel  was  the  only  sound  in  the  room; 
and  as  his  feeble  look  strayed  to  it  he  instinctively 
compared  its  gaudy  case  and  its  cheapness  with  the 
portentous  significance  it  resumed.  He  knew,  and 
also  instinctively,  that  Olive  was  as  intent  on  the 
sound  as  he;  and  he  was  half-prepared  for  the  sudden 
ness  with  which  she  rose,  turned  to  the  mantel  and 
flung  the  little  clock  to  the  earth.  The  case  fell  in 
atoms;  the  works  clicked  feebly  for  a  moment  and 
then  stopped. 

She  turned  back  to  the  bed  with  what  Mr.  Lacy 
faintly  realised  was  a  look  of  appeal.  "Oh,  do  you 
suppose  I'll  hate  it  as  much  as  that?"  She  spoke  with 
the  same  impulsiveness. 

"Of  course,  my  dear;  we  put  more  vitality  into  our 
hatred  of  death  than  into  anything  else  in  our  lives; 
but  that's  no  reason  for  giving  way  to  an  act  which 
puts  you  on  the  same  emotional  plane  as  Basker!" 
His  energy  seemed  for  an  instant  to  concentrate  itself 
in  his  eyes;  then  their  light  suddenly  faded,  and  they 
became  opaque  and  grey.  "Was  there  anything,"  his 
voice  failed  with  the  passage  of  each  second,  "in  the 
paper  to-day?  I'm  very  tired — I  shan't  take  it  in;  but 
you  might  read  to  me  for  a  bit.  .  .  ." 

[62] 


AS  Mr.  Lacy  himself  said,  in  one  of  his  last 
whispers  to  Olive,  it  was  the  completest  touch 
of  his  perversity  that  he  should  die  with  incom 
petence.  He  passed  gradually  from  extreme  weakness 
into  a  coma  whose  weight  lifted  for  rarer  and  rarer 
instants,  and  from  that  imperceptibly  into  death. 

On  the  evening  when  she  turned  the  flame  of  her 
candle  on  his  face  and  realised  that  her  grandfather 
had  finally  distanced  the  point  which  he  claimed  to 
have  so  inconsiderately  delayed,  Olive  was  aware  of 
the  depth  of  her  breath  of  relief.  She  had  laid  her 
hand  on  his  forehead  by  accident;  but  she  kept  it  there 
without  repulsion;  and  as  she  felt  herself  penetrated 
by  the  new  tensity  of  silence  which,  with  her  discovery, 
had  filled  the  room,  she  caught  herself  wondering  what, 
after  all,  people  saw  in  death  which  was  so  impressive 
and  special. 

The  clarity  of  action  in  her  mind  had  submerged  the 
last  latent  uncertainty  of  her  feeling.  Years  ago,  so 
long  before  that  she  had  ceased  to  date  it  except  as 
something  instinct  in  all  the  processes  of  her  growth, 
she  had  measured  and  arranged  all  her  possibilities 
by  the  situation  in  which  she  must  find  herself  on  the 
day  when  Mr.  Lacy's  death  freed  her.  It  was  not 
that  she  had  regarded  it  as  an  escape  from  imprison 
ment.  Her  hard  logic  had  made  her  see  her  obligation 
to  tend  him  as  practically  as  she  saw  the  restrictions 
of  her  future.  But  she  had  understood  the  difficulties 
of  her  making  any  move  in  view  of  his  age,  his  debility 

[63] 


ASCENT 

and  his  dominating  judgments,  even  more  accurately 
than  he.  She  had  set  a  glance  no  less  steady  on  the 
chances  which  might  await  her.  She  understood  too 
well  that  she  would  be  a  foregone  failure  in  any  contacts 
of  competition,  and  that  her  brilliancy  had  not  yet  the 
depth  nor  her  tenacity  the  patience  for  a  protracted 
struggle.  Her  sharpened  social  instinct  was  all  against 
any  form  of  a  gradual  achievement.  She  felt  that  she 
must  arrest  her  opportunities  with  a  firm  gesture  and 
by  an  innate  force;  and  as  she  left  Mr.  Lacy's  room, 
late  that  night,  with  Philip  and  one  or  two  of  the 
Trails  busily  disturbing  its  bare  silence  with  their 
whispered  comments,  she  had  a  sense  of  satisfaction 
that  she  had  never  accepted  any  temporary  alleviation 
or  palliative,  and  that  even  with  her  restlessness  to 
drive  her  she  had  never  fallen  into  any  concessions  in 
the  standard  of  what  she  wanted  to  do  and  the  kind 
of  life  she  meant  ultimately  to  achieve. 

She  had  flung  herself  on  her  bed  and  lain  all  night 
face  to  face  with  these  images.  The  noises  in  the 
house  dropped  into  silence;  and  only  the  creaking  sway 
of  the  arc-light  at  the  corner,  in  a  wind  so  gusty  that 
it  lifted  the  snow  in  blind  flurries,  broke  on  her 
thoughts.  Now  that  she  touched  with  actuality  the 
aspect  of  her  future,  she  saw  how  it  had  come  to  be 
composed.  It  had  grown  with  each  enrichment  of  her 
perception.  Her  talks  with  her  grandfather  of  his 
youthful  ardours  and  enthusiasms,  the  books  she  had 
read,  the  few  personalities  which  had  risen  on  her 
horizon,  had  always  instantly  related  themselves  to  her 
own  case.  She  had  no  more  sense  that  their  separate 
entities  existed,  as  apart  from  some  possible  connection 
with  her,  than  she  had  a  sense  of  adventure.  The  details 

[64] 


ASCENT 

of  what  she  meant  to  do  were  as  precise  in  her  mind 
as  the  details  of  the  arrangements  she  had  made  for 
the  funeral  and  her  plans  as  to  how,  in  the  next  weeks, 
she  could  manage  to  see  Devon.  She  was  the  last 
person,  she  thought,  as  she  finally  felt  the  first  touch 
of  sleep,  to  be  tricked  into  any  softness  of  imagination 
or  to  believe  in  any  of  the  dangerous  inaccuracies  of 
inspiration. 

She  rested  so  little  that  it  was  largely  for  the  sake 
of  a  few  moments  of  quiet  that  she  went  down  to  the 
little  sitting  room,  the  following  morning,  half  an  hour 
before  the  service  was  to  take  place.  As  she  closed  the 
door  behind  her  and  felt  the  pervasive  differences  in 
the  still  air,  heavy  with  the  unaccustomed  profusion  of 
flowers,  she  realised  for  the  first  time  her  fatigue. 
They  would  probably — Philip  and  the  Trails — think 
it  due  her  piety  to  leave  her  here  in  solitude;  and  the 
last  hours  had  made  her  long  for  nothing  so  much  as 
an  escape  from  her  father's  insistence  on  the  unimpor 
tant.  During  the  day  before  she  had  come  and  gone 
from  her  grandfather's  room  freely,  with  no  change  in 
the  fall  of  her  step  and  no  attenuation  in  the  rapid 
movements  of  her  hands.  Perhaps  she  felt  the  fact 
of  his  death  so  little  because  he  was  still  so  extraordi 
narily  present.  As  he  had  lain  on  his  bed,  the  only 
change  seemed  to  be  that  he  was  somehow  transferred 
to  a  permanence  of  inertness.  She  had  even  the  per 
sistent  sense  that  he  was  listening  and  watching;  and 
when  Philip  had  stipulated  all  the  details  of  the 
approaching  service,  she  had  turned  impatiently  out  of 
the  room,  with  a  slam  of  the  door  which  startled  every 
corner  of  the  house,  even  less  for  the  peace  of  being 
rid  of  such  grotesque  preoccupations  than  to  ease  her 

[65] 


ASCENT 

latent  sense  that  Mr.  Lacy  might  turn  and  smile  at 
her.  Philip  had  insisted  on  the  funeral  service, — on 
prayers,  as  she  told  him,  which  Mr.  Lacy  would  never 
have  prayed  to  a  God  he  could  never  have  believed 
in.  He  was  ready,  she  could  see,  since  he  had  held 
out  for  Mr.  Basker,  to  hold  out  for  a  white  marble 
cross  with  a  dove  perched  upon  it;  how  exquisitely 
amusing,  she  thought,  her  grandfather  would  have 
found  the  correlation  between  Mr.  Basker  and  the 
dove.  .  .  . 

She  had  crossed  the  sitting  room,  to  where  the  open 
coffin  stood  in  front  of  the  unlit  hearth,  and  had 
impatiently  moved  the  pink  roses  which  Philip  had 
disposed  with  a  symmetrical  hand.  The  fautlessness 
of  his  bad  taste,  she  reflected,  spoilt  even  his  sorrow. 
As  she  straightened  herself,  with  her  hand  still  on  Mr. 
Lacy's  breast,  her  image  in  the  mirror  above  the 
mantel  caught  her  eyes  and  arrested  her  movement 
in  the  immobility  of  surprise. 

Her  wonder  was  so  definite  that  it  took  her  an 
instant  to  realise  the  weary  familiarity  of  the  reflected 
room,  the  walls  she  had  tried  to  keep  simple  and  the 
one  or  two  portraits,  testimonials  to  that  strain  in 
her  grandfather  which,  as  he  had  liked  to  say,  showed 
the  incipient  insipidity  of  an  aristocracy.  Below  them 
was  the  mass  of  flowers  she  had  banked  there.  The 
sight  gave  her  at  once  a  sense  of  the  appropriate  back 
ground  they  formed,  not  for  the  horizontal  black  line 
which  was  the  coffin,  but  for  her  figure  as  it  rose  above 
it.  Had  she  ever,  she  wondered,  seen  herself  before? 
Her  mind  instinctively  reverted  to  an  attempt  to 
explain  her  astonishment.  She  had  heard  often  from 
Mr.  Lacy  of  the  emotionality  which  death  diffused 

[66] 


ASCENT 

about  it,  and  of  the  self-conscious  pageantry  of  man's 
attempt,  as  he  had  called  it,  to  hide  his  fear  of  anni 
hilation.  Or  was  not  what  startled  her  merely  the 
large  in  the  terms  of  the  smaller,  and  reduced  to  the 
fact  that  she  had  never  yet  seen  herself  in  such  a  dress? 
The  week  before,  just  after  Mr.  Lacy  was  taken  ill, 
she  had  sent  old  Norah  in  to  a  Wickford  shop.  Her 
instructions  had  been  exact;  she  was  ordering  the 
best  mourning  Wickford  could  produce,  and  she 
reminded  Norah,  who  was  bewildered  and  vaguely 
horrified,  that  she  was  also  ordering  her.  She  had 
never  before  seen  herself  look  as  she  wanted  to  look, 
and  never  seen  materials  fine  enough  to  keep  the  flatness 
of  her  back  and  to  outline  her  arms  in  lines  which  had 
all  the  sensitiveness  of  the  arms  themselves.  As  she 
caught  the  picture  in  the  glass,  she  seemed  to  herself  to 
have  been  touched  by  art;  not  only  by  her  unaccus 
tomed  appearance,  but  by  her  juxtaposition  with  the 
flowers  behind  her  and  the  whiteness  of  Mr.  Lacy's 
prostrate  figure  in  front  of  her. 

Her  absorption  was  broken  by  a  sudden  sound  at 
the  door.  She  was  conscious  of  some  one  hesitating  on 
the  threshold  and  of  the  door  once  more  closing,  and 
she  turned  from  the  mirror  to  find  herself  facing  young 
Devon.  The  strangeness  of  the  moment  could  not 
have  marked  itself  more  definitely  for  her;  and  she 
could  have  measured  its  effect  entirely  by  its  effect  on 
him.  He  had  made  a  brief,  grave  sign  of  his  head  to 
her,  while  he  drew  back  against  the  wall  to  wait;  but 
as  he  continued  to  confront  her  she  could  see  that  the 
courtesy  and  consideration  in  his  face  gradually  dis 
appeared,  as  if  they  were  absorbed  in  something  deeper. 
He  had  once  or  twice  before,  she  thought,  given  her 

L67J 


ASCENT 

back  her  own  looks  in  a  way  which  had  the  touch  of 
revelation,  but  never  so  definitely  as  now.  She  saw 
how  deeply  the  sight  of  her  impressed  him;  and  the 
poignancy  of  his  impression  made  precise  to  her  all 
the  details  of  her  beauty,  as  she  had  caught  it  in  the 
glass.  She  could  tell,  by  following  his  eyes,  how  deli 
cately  she  carried  her  head  and  that  the  line  from  the 
tip  of  her  chin  down  her  throat  was  as  clear  as  the 
curve  of  a  flame.  She  understood  the  fineness  of  the 
angles  of  her  face  from  the  fact  that  not  one  of  them 
let  his  attention  go,  and  she  felt  his  look  touch  the 
thinness  of  her  eyebrows  and  the  sensitiveness  of  her 
nostrils.  The  power  of  which  she  had  become  aware 
seemed  to  her  suddenly  measurable  because  of  its 
influence  on  him;  and  as  she  dropped  her  eyes  again 
to  her  grandfather,  on  whom  her  hand  still  rested,  she 
felt  that  their  exchange  had  not  lacked  the  touch  of 
Mr.  Lacy's  silent  irony,  to  make  it  complete. 

The  door  had  opened  again,  this  time  with  an 
authoritative  hand,  and  Mr.  Basker  in  his  cassock  and 
gown  entered.  The  glance  he  gave  her  passed  with  an 
equal  severity  to  Mr.  Lacy's  closed  face.  Olive  gave 
a  rapid  look  of  calculation,  to  see  where  the  richest 
and  darkest  roses  were  placed,  and  took  her  stand 
in  front  of  them;  Devon,  she  noticed,  was  directly 
opposite  her;  a  few  people  filed  into  the  room,  headed 
by  Philip,  and  the  service  began. 

She  was  vaguely  conscious  of  the  succession  of 
its  opening  stages  and  of  her  habitual  dislike  of  the 
peculiarities  of  Mr.  Basker 's  pronunciation;  but  no 
latent  meaning  held  before  the  stirred  curiosity  in  her 
mind.  How  intensely — her  eyes  fell  again  to  Mr. 
Lacy's  face — it  would  have  interested  him.  She  had 

[68] 


ASCENT 

always  known  that  she  had  points  of  loveliness;  but 
it  had  needed  the  shock  of  the  readjustments  caused 
by  his  death  and  her  entrance  into  the  fight  for  a  new 
kind  of  self-assertion  to  show  her  that  no  beauty 
counted  unless  it  were  actively  used.  She  had  learned 
by  her  sudden  influence  on  young  Devon,  an  influence 
which  was  demonstrable  and  direct;  how  delightfully 
her  grandfather  would  have  phrased  it,  and  how  neatly 
he  would  have  composed  his  definition  of  the  stimulus 
of  spectators,  of  her  overworn  nerves,  and  of  a  new 
dress.  .  .  . 

From  the  pallid  monotony  of  Mr.  Basker's  voice  a 
phrase  struck  her;  and  as  he  proceeded  her  mind 
clung  to  it  and  heard  nothing  further;  "for  this  cor 
ruptible  must  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must 
put  on  immortality.  .  .  ."  Mr.  Lacy  would  have  been 
the  first  to  agree  with  her  that  the  consciousness  of 
such  beauty  as  hers  made  theories  of  survival  more  than 
ever  grotesque;  as  if,  she  thought,  she  could  be  ex 
pressed  in  the  pallor  of  transmutation  or  by  a  transfer 
ence  into  spiritual  significances.  As  the  words  sounded 
over  and  over  in  her  ears  she  found  herself  looking 
down  not  at  her  grandfather's  face  but  at  his  crossed 
hands;  and  suddenly  the  difference  between  corruption 
and  incorruption  resumed  itself  in  them.  She  could  not 
quite  believe  in  his  death  when  she  looked  at  his  face; 
it  had  lain  so  often  before,  in  the  last  year,  in  this  grey 
silence.  But  the  immobility  of  his  hands  affected  her 
intimately.  Through  their  fine  thinness  she  had  always 
fancied  that  there  ran  his  impatience  and  his  detesta 
tion  of  any  processes  of  thought  which  were  not  as 
certain  and  as  rapid  as  their  own  movements.  On  the 
rare  occasions  when  he  touched  her  he  had  always  done 

[69] 


ASCENT 

so  lightly,  with  all  his  quality  of  charm;  and  she  re 
membered  the  brush  of  his  fingers  against  her  cheek 
as  the  vividest  conveyance  to  her  of  his  affection. 

For  the  first  time  a  sensation  of  uncertainty  caught 
in  her  throat.  She  instinctively  turned  from  the  open 
coffin,  and  her  eyes  as  instinctively  swept  across  the 
room  and  clung  for  the  swiftest  moment  to  Devon's. 
The  sudden  softening  of  her  attitude  and  the  appeal 
in  her  face  were  not  brief  enough  or  light  enough  to 
escape  him.  His  own  look  changed,  in  response,  to  a 
warmer  and  kinder  reassurance,  but  also  to  a  reserve 
which,  as  her  intuition  saw,  was  deepened  by  the  feeling 
behind  it.  With  the  realisation  of  the  depth  to  which 
she  had  affected  him,  her  momentary  hesitation  was 
gone;  and  at  a  sign  from  Philip  she  crossed  the  room, 
aware  that  Mr.  Basker's  voice  had  stopped,  and  went 
to  put  on  her  wraps  for  the  churchyard. 

"You  must  tell  Mr.  Devon  to  come  back  to  the 
house,"  she  had  said  to  her  father,  as  they  turned 
away  from  the  grave,  just  before  noon;  "I  must  give 
him  the  most  recent  notes  on  the  catalogue.  He's  not 
often  in  Wickford,  you  know." 

Philip  left  her  and  she  remained  for  a  moment 
motionless,  with  her  eyes  on  the  scar  of  upturned 
earth  which  broke  the  surface  of  the  churchyard.  The 
brilliant  penetrating  light  of  the  winter  midday  created 
in  her  the  sense  of  a  stillness  as  breathless  as  the  cold. 
She  drew  a  long  draught  of  the  icy  air;  it  seemed  to 
her  that  she  had  never  experienced  so  keen  a  feeling 
of  excitation  and  suspension,  and  that  all  the  shadows 
and  attenuations  of  her  thought  had  vanished  in  the 
clear  vigour  of  action. 

[70] 


ASCENT 

She  turned  as  Devon  approached  her,  in  an  evident 
response  to  Philip's  word  with  him. 

"It's  exceedingly  kind  of  you,"  he  said  in  a  lowered 
tone, — "and  of  course  one  so  hesitates  to  bother  you 
just  now.  .  .  .  But  if  my  father  could  have  the  notes, 
up  to  date,  it  would  be  an  immense  help  to  him.  He's 
been  in  bed  for  a  week;  that's  the  only  reason  he's  not 
here  to-day." 

Olive  nodded  briefly.  aOf  course  you  must  have 
the  notes.  Nothing  would  have  annoyed  my  grand 
father  more  than  to  be  the  cause  of  delaying  them. 
I've  understood  it  was  essential,  and  I  managed,  yester 
day,  to  find  time  to  gather  them  together."  Her  eyes 
met  his.  "I  want  you  to  tell  your  father — will  you? 
—that  I  mean  to  finish  grandfather's  work  for  him. 
I've  enough  experience  of  it  now,  you  know.  I  under 
stand  the  papers  backward;  and  I  can  easily  run  up 
to  Wickford,  for  an  hour  or  two,  from  time  to 
time.  .  .  ."  She  glanced  at  the  people  who  were 
already  dispersing,  beyond  the  freshly  filled  grave. 
"Come — shall  we  walk?  They've  all  gone,  haven't 
they?  .  .  .  and  the  air  is  delicious." 

Devon  made  no  reply  except  to  lay  her  hand  on  his 
arm.  It  was  exceedingly  slippery,  he  said,  but  if  she 
were  careful  they  could  pick  their  way  across  the  snow 
to  the  path.  She  felt  his  eyes  on  her  averted  face;  and 
she  was  conscious  that  her  black  furs,  as  they  blew 
against  her  cheek,  must  emphasise  its  clear  pallor. 

At  the  outer  gate  she  wheded  about,  with  her  look 
rising  from  the  spot  they  had  just  left  to  the  blue-white 
line  of  the  hills  against  the  brilliant  sky.  "Good 
heavens" — she  broke  out — "but  it  makes  one  angry!" 

She  understood  that  Devon's  surprise  arrested  him 


ASCENT 

for  a  moment;  not  only  his  surprise  at  the  turn  of  her 
feeling,  as  she  instantly  comprehended,  but  at  her 
admission  of  him  to  it.  His  expression,  as  he  con 
fronted  her,  made  her  aware  of  how  perfect  her 
reticence  of  attitude  to  him  had  always  been. 

"Angry?"  The  word  evidently  held  him.  "To 
think  of  him,  do  you  mean — the  most  brilliant  and 
delightful  of  people — as  having  to  leave  you  when  he 
so  loved  you?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "Don't  you  see?  Don't  you 
feel  the  terrible  impudence  of  trying  to  couple  him  with 
those  prayers  and  that  grave?  Death — at  least  death 
is  positive,  final;  one's  got  to  bear  it;  but  to  put  all 
this  weakness  of  sentiment  into  it,  to  try  to  make  a 
beauty  out  of  what  is  all  cruel  ugliness  .  .  .  No,  no, 
he  would  have  minded  it  even  worse  than  he  minded 
dying!" 

She  felt  Devon's  eyes  again  on  her  face;  what 
struck  her  at  once  was  that  he  was  not  so  much  fol 
lowing  what  she  said  as  watching  her. 

"You're  incredibly  like  him!"  He  seemed,  as  he 
spoke,  to  be  answering  his  own  thought. 

She  made  a  sharp  gesture.  "But  don't  you  see  that's 
just  my  difficulty — that  I'm  not?  What's  to  become 
of  me,  I'd  like  to  know?  Here  he's  trained  me, 
whipped  me  into  all  his  disbeliefs,  dropped  them 
slowly,  one  by  one,  into  my  thoughts  until  I'm  all  his 
system;  and  yet  I'm  myself.  I'm  a  young  woman, 
and  not  an  old  man.  I've  no  power  of  distortion  about 
death.  It  means  to  me  just  the  horror  of  his  dying, 
the  loss  of  the  person  who's  shaped  me  and  made  me, 
and  who  yet  was  to  leave  me  when  I  most  needed 
him.  I've  no  power  of  distortion  about  life.  Yet 

[72] 


ASCENT 

somehow  I've  got  to  live  .  .  ."  She  caught  herself 
up.  "I  can't  imagine  why  I  impose  these  things  on 
you,  Mr.  Devon.  We're  after  all  complete  strangers 
to  each  other.  Come,  and  if  there's  time  before  your 
train  I'll  show  how  I've  worked  out  grandfather's  addi 
tions  to  the  last  section." 

They  walked  in  silence  for  some  moments,  and  it 
was  not  until  they  struck  into  the  white  waste  of  the 
village  street  that  Devon  spoke.  "You've  no  plans?" 

"None."  Her  brevity  was  as  sharp  as  Mr.  Lacy's. 
"For  the  next  months  I  must  stay  where  I  am.  We 
own  the  house,  you  understand.  It  is  entirely  a  ques 
tion  of  money.  My  father  and  I  cannot  separate  and 
do  much  more  than  keep  alive;  you  see — "  she  gave  her 
quick  smile — "I'm  not  like  a  girl  who's  reached  life 
through  companions  and  dances,  good  times  and  all 
that.  I'm  the  result  of  his  old  close  tradition,  and 
it  makes  the  usual  people  hate  the  thing  they  can't 
understand  in  me  as  they  hated  it  in  him.  He  always 
told  me  I'd  find  the  world  just  as  hard  as  I  found  Ware; 
and  I'd  rather,  I  sometimes  think,  sit  here  and  read, 
and  if  I've  got  to  be  smothered,  at  least  be  smothered 
in  dignity  and  privacy.  .  .  ." 

"Perhaps  you'll  find  that  his  affairs — "  he  began. 

"I  shall  find  nothing.  I  know  everything  there  is 
to  know.  If  we  can  sell  the  house  and  if  father's 
investments  haven't  been  too  unwise,  then  we  might 
leave  here.  But  I  quite  plainly  see" — her  tone  per 
mitted  no  attenuation — "that  it's  extremely  uncertain." 

Devon  shot  a  glance  at  her.  "I've  thought  each  one 
of  the  few  times  I've  seen  you,  Miss  Lacy,  that  it's  a 
tragic  thing,  for  anyone  like  you — to  have  to  live  only 
in  the  future." 

[731 


ASCENT 

"I  never  live  in  the  future."  They  had  paused  at 
the  gate,  and  she  raised  her  eyes  directly  to  his. 
"You're  entirely  wrong.  I  live  in  this  moment,  and 
in  its  facts  rather  than  in  its  possibilities.  I'm  not  to 
be  pitied — I've  my  own  scale  of  things.  Please  have 
no  illusions  about  me;  I  have  none  about  myself." 

"Haven't  you?  I  wonder  .  .  ."  He  broke  off.  He 
was  half  smiling,  as  if  he  had  the  tolerance  of  his 
experience  for  her  tone,  and  his  look  strayed  for  a 
moment  back  to  the  undulating  fall  of  the  glistening 
meadow.  Olive  understood  the  compound  of  amuse 
ment  and  sympathy  in  his  voice;  but  what  she  instantly 
felt  was  the  slip  of  his  attention.  An  instinctive 
tenacity  touched  the  corners  of  her  lips.  She  hesitated 
for  a  second,  while  her  black-gloved  finger  slowly 
traced  a  furrow  on  the  powdery  snow  which  crowned 
the  gate  post,  and  her  colour  faintly  rose. 

"I  suppose  you're  like  the  rest!"  she  abruptly  said. 
"You  think  I've  no  heart!  Well,  perhaps  I  haven't. 
But  he  was  the  only  being  who  was  close  to  me,  who 
pitied  me  even  when  he  didn't  understand  me.  I  loved 
him  in  my  own  way  and  I  shall  mourn  him  in  my  own 
way.  .  .  ." 

She  raised  her  hand  uncertainly  to  her  forehead. 
"We  had  better  go  over  the  papers  at  once;  my  head 
is  very  tired — ;"  she  stopped.  A  tear  had  fallen  to 
her  cheek,  and  as  she  felt  its  touch  she  was  aware  that 
she  had  recaptured  Devon's  interest.  His  admiration 
again  vividly  lit  the  eyes  he  turned  to  her.  As  he 
hurriedly  murmured  that  he'd  been  all  wrong  to  let 
her  delay,  that  she  must  come  in  at  once  and  rest, 
she  knew  that  she  had  found  her  way  to  the  note 
which  would  invariably  move  him.  His  critical  judg- 

L74] 


ASCENT 

ments  were  evidently  not  strong  enough  to  withstand 
his  response  to  a  charm  and  his  ready  rise  to  a  sym 
pathy.  Yet  as  they  went  up  the  trodden  path  to  the 
door  her  grandfather  flashed  again  through  her  mind. 
He  would  probably  have  said,  with  one  of  his  swift 
contexts  of  thought,  she  reflected,  that  it  served  her 
right  for  disregarding  his  warning  about  young  Devon 
that  in  order  to  play  on  his  feelings  she  was  forced 
to  play  on  her  own. 


[751 


VI 

DEVON   had  flung  himself   back   in   his   seat, 
when  he  found  himself  in  the  late  afternoon 
train  which  was  to  take  him  to  Wickford;  and 
as  he  watched  the  wintry  country  stream  past  him, 
his  few  and  scattered  hours  with  Olive  Lacy  had  run 
together  in  his  thoughts  and,  linked  by  the  events  of 
the  day,  had  assumed  their  own  sequence. 

He  had  been  aware,  since  his  first  moment  with  her 
that  morning,  of  having  something  deeper  than  his 
interest  so  intimately  involved  that  he  wanted  to  think; 
and  when  he  could  at  last  give  himself  up  to  his 
thoughts,  some  sense  of  the  largeness  of  the  issues 
concerned  came  to  him  in  the  fact  that  his  reflections 
did  not  cling  so  much  about  her  as  about  himself.  She 
had  already  raised  in  him  questions  which  dealt  with 
the  fibre  of  his  life;  and  the  lift  of  the  beauty  in  her 
eyes  and  the  sharpness  of  intolerance  in  her  voice 
had  stirred  his  old  uncertainties,  roused  new  curiosities 
and  touched  in  the  dimmer  regions  of  his  mind  doubts 
which  he  had  never  quite  known  whether  to  greet  with 
a  sceptical  amusement  or  to  call  inspiring  visions. 

This  border  land  in  his  thoughts  was  one  of  the 
countries  where  he  had  most  lived.  He  never  remem 
bered  his  childhood  and  his  first  stirrings  of  conscious 
ness  without  an  equal  remembrance  of  a  territory  of  his 
own,  where  he  could  retreat  to  have  his  own  good 
times.  Farthest  back  of  all  in  his  memory,  it  was  a 
place  where  one  was  merely  let  alone,  where  his 

[76] 


ASCENT 

mother's  periodic  accessions  of  interest  could  not 
bother  him  and  where  his  father's  sudden  disciplinary 
excesses  could  not  be  an  obstacle  to  his  plans.  Later 
his  private  world  had  changed  to  a  place  to  which  one 
went,  consciously  performing  the  journey  and  arriving 
at  a  delightful  spot  where  there  was  complete  safety 
from  interruption  because  no  one  else  knew  the  trick 
of  admission.  His  sense  of  self-preservation  had 
vaguely  linked  itself  with  his  childish  imagination, 
and  he  had  understood  that  to  maintain  his  privacy 
and  to  make  at  will  his  retreats  to  it  was  the  easiest 
means  of  existence.  For  one  thing,  it  stopped  that 
perpetual  appeal  to  him  which,  as  he  had  early  realised, 
was  the  single  point  his  parents  had  in  common.  His 
instinct  was  too  quick  not  to  divine  that  all  they 
wanted,  in  their  sporadic  claims  on  his  affection,  was 
to  put  each  other  in  the  wrong.  He  could  still  remem 
ber  the  day — and  he  knew  it,  now,  as  having  been  for 
all  three  of  them  an  occasion — when,  sitting  at  table 
between  them,  he  had  glanced  from  his  mother's  futile 
prettiness,  somehow  more  galling,  as  her  husband  said, 
than  anything  about  her,  to  the  equal  futility  of  his 
father's  cleverness  and  made  the  choice  of  his  inde 
pendence;  and  when  they  finally  separated  and  he 
lived,  at  such  times  when  he  was  not  at  school,  first 
with  one  and  then  with  the  other,  he  gradually  under 
stood  that  his  neutrality  had  not  only  protected  him 
but  had  led  him  to  develop  a  life  of  his  own. 

The  first  results  of  this  determination  not  to  fall 
into  a  partisanship  were  that  he  should  apply  to  his 
surroundings  a  steady  criticism.  But  for  more  years 
than  his  mental  activity  had  been  clear,  and  because 
of  his  sensitiveness,  he  had  measured  what  he  had 

[77] 


ASCENT 

sacrificed  in  reaching  this  point.  He  had  been  deprived 
not  only  of  the  warmth  of  direct  relationships.  His 
loss  was  of  a  kind  beyond  mitigation;  and  as  he 
matured  he  had  realised  the  price  of  too  compressed 
and  constricted  a  development,  and  that  instead  of 
falling  easily  into  his  natural  indifference  he  had  had 
to  rely  on  its  armour  too  often.  The  few  ideas  which 
reached  growth  and  fruition  in  him,  under  these  cir 
cumstances,  had  had  too  concentrated  a  force.  After 
his  first  year  at  college,  a  year  which  an  easy  popu 
larity  had  made  specially  broadening,  he  had  made  his 
accustomed  journey,  from  his  mother's  ornate  apart 
ment  in  New  York  to  the  shabby  sitting  room  at 
Wickford,  with  a  dry  amusement  and  with  the  sense 
that  anything  was  better  than  to  have  run  the  risk  of 
changing  all  his  points  of  view  with  the  actual  transit 
in  the  railway.  His  parents  remained  very  much  as 
his  childish  justness  of  vision  had  seen  them;  they 
were  as  incapable  of  foregoing  a  mutual  domestic 
existence  even  in  separation,  and  of  keeping  a  silence 
or  of  making  an  omission.  He  grew  even  to  feel  that 
the  jades  weren't  real,  and  that  they  existed  solely  as 
crystallised  symbols  of  his  father's  refusal  to  deal 
directly  with  life. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  indefiniteness  of  trend  in 
his  development,  and  of  too  definite  revulsions  in  him 
self,  Devon  had  lacked  even  more  than  the  usual  young 
American  a  plan  of  existence  and  of  action.  A  natural 
aptitude  for  architecture  had  determined  his  drift  to 
Paris.  His  years  at  the  Beaux  Arts  had  been  full  of 
charm,  but  with  the  same  absence  of  direction.  He 
sometimes  caught  himself  wondering  at  the  uneven- 
nesses  in  his  maturity.  He  was  so  without  the  fire  of 

[78] 


ASCENT 

belief,  so  content  with  the  idle  sense  of  the  charm 
of  the  present,  so  habituated  to  see  ultimate  rather 
than  temporary  values  in  what  either  waked  the  youth 
ful  scepticism  of  his  contemporaries  or  stirred  them 
to  enthusiasm.  Yet  he  was  innately  conscious  of  carry 
ing  within  himself  a  clear  definiteness  of  acceptance 
and  rejection  and  an  immediacy  of  action  in  the  judg 
ments  of  his  taste,  which  were  either,  he  supposed, 
very  ignorant  or  very  astute. 

Most  of  his  companions  took  the  life  like  the  usual 
temporarily  denationalised  young  Americans.  There 
was  not  yet  war  in  the  air,  to  stimulate  their  sense  of 
conduct  and  to  give  it  new  proportions;  and  there  still 
survived  some  of  the  former  traditions  of  excess,  rather 
tame  and  artificial,  as  it  seemed  to  Devon,  and  lacking 
in  personality.  He  was  amused  by  these  accidents  and 
he  shared  them,  but  with  his  sense  of  detachment 
clearer  than  ever.  Something  in  the  tone  of  Paris 
struck  him  as  a  standard.  The  instinct  for  order  and 
loveliness  affected  him  intimately.  The  living  beauty 
of  the  grey  streets,  the  penetrative  sense  of  art  which 
he  discovered  anywhere  and  everywhere,  the  modeled 
compactness  of  the  French  life,  as  every  now  and  then 
he  brushed  close  to  it,  were  like  a  tonic  to  his  instinc 
tive  differentiations.  The  young  men  with  whom  he 
found  himself  became  externally  more  of  this  existence 
than  he.  They  achieved  their  accent  and  their  slang 
and  their  passionate  French  prejudices,  whether  for 
an  idea,  for  a  supposititious  form  of  socialism  or  for 
a  love  affair.  He  felt  himself  more  fundamentally 
touched.  He  had  his  national  lack  of  a  formative 
morality  and  his  national  ease  in  adapting  himself  to 
extraneous  circumstances;  and  as  the  months  passed 

[79] 


ASCENT 

he  gradually  understood  that  he  was  becoming  a  citizen 
of  everywhere.  Sometimes  he  went  to  Venice  for  the 
autumn  exhibitions,  and  saw  the  pictures  with  eyes 
more  and  more  certainly  and  easily  sophisticated.  He 
spent  one  September  vacation  in  the  flame-like  air  of 
northern  Tunis,  he  knew  where  there  was  good  swim 
ming  all  along  the  Schleswig  coast;  and  one  spring, 
after  a  successful  examination,  he  took  the  trans- 
Siberian  to  Port  Arthur,  before  going  back  to  begin  his 
work  in  a  New  York  office. 

He  left  friends  everywhere,  but  he  carried  away  no 
sense  of  something  added  to  himself.  He  recognised  the 
carnival  of  the  moment,  but  he  did  not  feel  it.  The  one 
or  two  more  delicate  relations  with  women  which  had 
lightened  and  deepened  these  years  made  this  truth 
more  than  ever  evident  to  him.  Once  or  twice  he  had 
been  completely  careless  of  everything  but  his  happi 
ness.  But  he  was  never  able  to  rid  himself  of  the 
latent  reactions  of  a  chivalry  rooted  in  his  fineness  of 
fibre,  of  a  question  of  all  temporary  certainties  and  of 
doubts  which  required  a  visible  response.  He  had 
begun,  he  knew,  with  the  only  kind  of  metaphysics  of 
which  a  boy  is  capable,  and  which  had  brought  him 
to  a  reliance  on  his  perpetually  active  instinct  rather 
than  on  actualities;  and  he  had  ended — where?  At  an 
added  capacity,  or  at  only  added  exactions  from  his 
sensitiveness?  Something  profounder  than  the  present 
stirred  in  him,  as  he  followed,  from  the  train  window, 
the  processes  of  change  in  the  twilight.  He  felt  Olive 
scarcely  as  much  as  he  felt  her  mystery,  and  her 
mystery  scarcely  as  much  as  the  mystery  of  all  feeling. 
He  asked  himself,  for  the  first  time  in  his  experience, 
whether  the  human  relation  is  ever  an  end  in  itself, 

[80] 


ASCENT 

or  whether  it  serves  only  its  part  in  the  sequences  of 
larger  revelations.  The  shadows  on  the  white  world 
he  watched  grew  from  blue  to  violet  and  the  evening 
came  in  a  grey  pallor;  and  suddenly  his  sense  of  the 
impermanence  of  the  wide  American  landscape  was 
lifted  and  lit  by  her  qualities.  The  brilliancy  of  her 
possibilities  revivified  his  original  inspiration  of  an 
adventurous  future  and  her  aloofness  ran  out,  with  the 
fading  light,  into  the  tenuosities  of  the  dusk.  His 
imagination,  he  supposed,  with  the  accustomed  arrest 
of  his  self-derision,  would  of  course  have  to  fasten  itself 
to  a  woman,  and  to  a  woman  with  so  clear  a  moral  need. 
But  he  caught  himself  wondering  if  he  should  ever 
recognise  the  force  which  penetrated  and  possessed  all 
capacity,  which  should  put  another  person  between 
him  and  his  thought  itself;  which  should  be  so  alive 
that  it  was  always  in  need  of  new  conquest,  yet  so 
intimately  his  that  there  was  no  separation  of  entity. 

Before  he  left  Wickford,  Devon  managed  to  delay 
his  departure  twice.  Each  time  it  was  after  he  had 
had  an  unexpected  meeting  with  Olive.  Once  she  had 
come  to  luncheon,  in  response  to  a  telephone  message 
from  his  father,  who  was  rapidly  absorbing  from  her 
the  details  of  the  indispensable  aid  old  Lacy  had  given 
him,  and  explained  to  them  some  intricacy  in  her 
grandfather's  notes  on  the  catalogue.  He  did  not  know 
whether  it  were  because  of  his  own  sense  of  a  considera 
tion  due  her  or  because  of  some  light  implication  in 
herself;  but  all  through  the  hour  he  had  felt  her  to 
be  completely  unapproachable.  She  glanced  briefly  at 
him,  every  now  and  then,  across  a  bowl  of  red  carna 
tions  which  his  father  had  arranged  in  a  sudden 

[81] 


ASCENT 

attempt  at  ceremony;  and  her  hands  reached  out  to 
touch  the  flowers,  in  the  pauses  of  the  conversation. 
The  sense  of  her  aloofness  brought  her  poignantly 
close  to  him.  He  felt  his  fancy  rise  and  play  on  the 
smallest  things  about  her, — the  movement  of  her 
dress,  the  way  her  fingers  closed  about  the  stem  of 
her  wine  glass,  with  the  colour  suddenly  deepening, 
under  the  pressure,  at  their  tips,  the  lighter  brown 
which  the  folds  of  her  black  veil  brought  out  in  her 
hair,  and  the  clear  sharp  line  of  her  cheek  and  chin  as 
she  turned  her  head.  Just  before  they  rose  she  bent 
forward  to  take  one  of  the  flowers  from  the  bowl,  and 
drew  it  through  the  knot  of  crepe  on  her  dress,  where 
it  lay  against  her  bare  throat.  He  could  not  have  said 
there  was  the  smallest  display  in  the  gesture.  Her 
compactness  of  action  showed  a  premeditation  deeper 
than  self-consciousness.  All  that  she  did  seemed  to  him 
a  fundamental  expression  of  her  quality.  The  flower 
in  her  dress  was  no  more  implicative  of  her  than  the 
thorough  technical  grasp  she  showed  of  the  matters 
in  question.  Part  of  her  magnificence  of  energy,  he 
felt,  was  that  she  had  nothing  old  or  tempered  in  her, 
no  abnegations,  no  concessions  and  no  antecedent 
restrictions,  and  that  she  was  resumed  in  the  positive 
play  of  her  force. 

She  had  glanced  at  her  watch,  about  three  o'clock, 
and  his  father,  with  one  of  his  quick,  irritable  glances, 
had  left  them  to  put  together  some  papers  which  she 
was  to  take  back  to  Ware.  Devon  had  instantly  spoken 
to  her  in  a  different  key,  aware  that  the  moment  they 
were  alone  there  was  a  sudden  progress  in  their 
exchange. 

[82] 


ASCENT 

"I  know  these  things  must  seem  horribly  dry  to  you; 
but  father's  so  set  on  it  .  .  ." 

"Nothing  is  easier  than  for  me  to  look  over  the 
papers  for  him.  I  have  nothing  to  do,  you  must 
remember;  now  my  days  and  nights  are  blank  spaces." 

She  spoke  with  the  coldest  clearness.  Devon  had 
never  felt  more  penetratively  the  hard  capacity  in  her 
voice.  He  held  his  next  words  for  a  moment.  His 
elbow  was  on  the  mantel,  and  his  eyes  rose  from  the 
wood  fire,  in  the  gaudily  tiled  grate,  to  follow  her  action 
as  she  stood  beside  him.  She  had  begun  to  draw  on 
her  long  black  gloves.  Her  hands  slipped  smoothly 
into  one  and  the  other;  and  he  saw  the  kid  take  the 
modelling  first  of  her  fingers  and  then  of  the  fine  lines 
about  her  wrists.  He  recalled  his  thoughts  with  an 
effort. 

"But  you're  a  marvel,  Miss  Lacy.  You'll  never  have 
blank  spaces.  It's  only  us  drifting  people  who  fall 
into  them." 

"Oh,  if  I  have  them,  it's  because  I  mean  to  have 
them.  Grandfather  scarcely  taught  one,  you  know, 
to  drift!" 

"It's  an  absurd  word  to  use  in  connection  with  you!" 
He  spoke  to  himself  as  much  as  to  her,  and  as  he  again 
raised  his  eyes  to  glance  at  her  he  saw  that  her  face 
had  stiffened  to  its  look  of  bitterness. 

"Is  it?  You  know  more  about  it  all  than  I  do. 
You've  seen  things,  done  things.  If  I  ever  do  get  to 
a  larger  life,  how  am  I  to  free  myself?  How  am  I  to 
spread  my  wings  and  fly?  Has  one  ever,  after  all, 
what  one  calls  control?"  Her  shoulders  rose  and  fell. 
"No,  no.  At  the  end  it  comes  back  to  drift,  after  all." 

[83] 


ASCENT 

"Ah,  not  with  a  person  like  you!"  he  paused. 
"You're  freer  than  all  the  rest  of  us." 

"Am  I?"  Her  dry  amusement  lit  her  eyes.  "Do 
you  really  believe  that,  Mr.  Devon?  If  you  do,  you're 
less  clever  than  I  thought  you.  You've  fatally  declared 
yourself — declared  yourself  immune  from  my  kind 
of  bondage.  No — "  she  raised  her  hand — "I'm  sure 
you  want  to  be  understanding  and  all  that.  I'm  not 
alluding  just  to  the  facts  that  I've  my  father  and  that 
I've  my  lack  of  money.  I'm  alluding  to  things  in  my 
nature  which — I  sometimes  think — will  always  keep 
me  from  freedom;  demands,  intolerances.  .  .  ." 

She  turned  abruptly  away.  Even  the  sharpness  of 
her  movement  had  its  charm  for  him.  He  was  keenly 
aware  of  every  element  in  her  fluctuations ;  they  stirred 
his  curiosity  and  intrigued  his  mind.  He  wondered, 
suddenly,  if  she  could  not  be  taught  to  feel  all  the 
finest  range  of  feeling;  whether  that  force  in  her  which 
was  still  incomprehensible  could  not  be  clarified  and 
defined  by  arousing  her  sentiment.  For  a  second,  the 
strangeness  of  which  was  definite  to  him,  he  seemed 
to  pierce,  in  his  rapidly  moving  thought,  the  enclosure 
about  her  immaturity,  as  if  he  had  turned  a  bright 
light  on  the  surface  of  a  seemingly  impenetrable  wall 
and  found  it  to  be  made  of  crystal. 

It  was  after  this  talk  with  her  that  Devon  decided 
to  linger  two  or  three  weeks  longer  with  his  father; 
not  with  any  definite  hope  that  he  should  immediately 
see  her  again,  but  with  a  vague  pleasure  in  her  com 
parative  nearness,  in  the  letters  which  each  day's  post 
brought  from  her  to  his  father,  and  an  indefinable 
sense  that  he  shared  something  in  her  existence  when 
he  felt,  in  Wickford,  the  same  storms  which  must 

[84] 


ASCENT 

sweep  with  such  white  fury  along  the  Ware  valley. 
He  was  aware  that  she  was  daily  and  hourly  more  per 
vasively  penetrating  his  thought  and  rapidly  becoming 
more  personal  to  him.  Where  his  intelligence  had 
formerly  dealt  with  her,  he  now  found  himself  instinc 
tively  reverting  to  the  scent  which  had  clung  to  his 
hand,  after  her  hand  had  touched  it,  and  the  way  her 
eyes,  in  their  rare  moments  of  softness,  rested  in  his. 
The  imprecision  which  hung  about  his  judgment  of  her 
laid  a  constant  touch  on  his  curiosity;  and  as  a  still 
negative  power,  which  he  did  not  yet  acknowledge,  she 
had  a  wider  influence  than  if  he  had  completely 
accepted  her. 

He  was  conscious  that  his  father's  eyes  frequently 
followed  him,  in  a  silence  even  less  implicative  than 
usual.  Their  lack  of  any  of  the  established  habit  of 
exchange  had  never  been  more  exposed.  One  night, 
however,  with  one  of  his  unexpected  turns,  Devon  had 
raised  his  head  suddenly  from  the  papers  which  were 
tossed  over  his  desk  to  say:  "I  suppose  you  think  that 
because  I've  no  use  for  your  mother,  I've  no  use  for 
all  women!" 

The  younger  Devon,  who  was  smoking  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table,  put  a  finger  in  the  pages  of  his  book 
and  smiled.  "Well — no.  I  shouldn't  have  thought 
that.  It  always  strikes  me  that  you  resent  mother 
rather  than  you  hate  her;  after  all,  her  chief  fault  is 
that  she  never  gives  one  anything  to  condemn  her  for." 

Devon  nodded.  "All  premises  fail  where  your 
mother's  concerned.  She's  not  real.  But  there's  one 
thing  about  her  .  .  ."  he  waited;  "her  selfishness  has 
always  been  traceable,  petty — oh,  rather  ridiculous. 
I'm  not  sure  that  that  Lacy  girl's  will  be  as  harmless. 

[85] 


ASCENT 

She's  got  in  her  the  only  element,"  he  chose  his  words, 
"which  civilisation's  been  powerless  to  modify — her 
instinct  of  fight.  She'll  fight  to  get  what  she  wants, 
she'll  fight  to  impose  herself." 

His  son  had  flushed  slightly.  "I  suppose  you're  warn 
ing  me.  I  might  remind  you,  mightn't  I?  that  for  a 
good  many  years  I've  been  ready  to  take  the  conse 
quences  of  what  I  do." 

"Oh,  it's  never  any  good  warning  a  chap  with  a 
nature  like  yours — all  indifference  outside  and  hard 
ness  in.  I  might  remind  you,  in  my  turn,  that  it's  not 
my  habit  to  bay  at  the  moon.  Nor  do  I  think  you'll  be 
fool  enough  to  think  you  can  train  and  tame  an  instinct 
as  strong  as  that.  You've  enough  psychology  in  you, 
I  suppose,  to  know  the  definition  of  conversion!  But  I 
don't  want  to  see  her  impose  on  that  streak  in  you 
which  responds  to  the  fluid  things  in  life  ...  to 
questions,  to  chances,  to  lost  causes — "  He  had  hesi 
tated  again.  "You're  not  a  poet,  John,  but  you've  got 
a  sense  of  poetry." 

"Then  I  owe  it  to  the  jades,"  his  son  had  flung 
back,  with  his  light  smile. 

Devon  laid  his  hand  on  the  froth-like  white  surface 
of  the  little  ornament  which,  on  its  black  base,  stood 
always  at  his  elbow.  "As  if  there  could  be  any  doubt 
of  that!  But  they've  been  enough  for  me,  the  jades; 
I've  had  them  because  they've  so  completely  had  me. 
What  you  need,  in  life,  is  something  like  them.  You 
need  a  purpose;  you  need  both  its  guidance  and  its 
restraint." 

"I  rather  think,"  young  Devon  still  kept  his  flush, 
"that  I  also  need  its  magnificence." 

"Well,  you'll  not  get  that  from  any  woman;"  he 
[86] 


ASCENT 

laid  a  long  finger  on  his  jade.  "The  Olive  Lacys  of 
the  world  are  after  all  only  a  guide  in  reaching  this 
kind  of  thing." 

"They  may  be  a  guide  in  reaching  feeling,"  retorted 
the  younger  man  easily;  "and  feeling's  even  closer  to 
art  than  jades." 

His  father  gave  him  a  final  silent  look;  his  only 
reply  was  to  murmur  that  he'd  talked  so  much  that  his 
cigar  had  gone  out;  and  a  second  later  he  was  bent 
again,  in  his  habitual  absorption,  over  his  books. 

It  was  one  afternoon  in  early  March,  when  the  snow 
was  turning  to  opaque  grey  water  and  the  noise  of  the 
clanging  trolleys  and  the  jostling  drays  had  never 
seemed  to  him  more  intolerably  full  of  the  reverbera 
tions  of  a  provincial  town,  that  Devon  turned  into  a 
little  Catholic  church,  the  clerestory  of  which  had 
lately  been  lifted  and  widened  by  one  of  his  firm.  He 
sat  in  the  darkest  part  of  the  nave,  grateful  for  the 
sudden  silence;  and  almost  at  once  he  became  aware 
that  both  the  gloom  and  the  stillness  were  charged 
with  a  personal  significance  for  him  and  that  a  few 
feet  in  front  of  him  Olive  was  kneeling.  She  was  the 
single  living  presence  in  the  dim  light;  and  she  knelt, 
as  he  thought,  with  all  her  aspect  of  mystery.  The  fall 
of  her  shoulders  and  the  lines  of  her  long  arms,  as 
she  had  bent  them  to  clasp  her  hands,  had  sharp 
significant  angles,  and  he  was  struck  at  once  by  how 
beautiful  a  background  so  full  a  surrounding  made  for 
her  beauty.  Even  in  the  passage  of  the  swift  instants, 
he  was  conscious  of  the  suggestion  of  drama  in  her 
impact  with  an  age-old  belief.  A  church  had  always 
meant  to  Devon,  as  to  many  men  of  his  type,  only  an 
attempt  at  dogmatisation  to  which  he  could  not  see 

[87] 


ASCENT 

himself  subscribe.  Yet  he  knew  that  in  any  belief 
which  has  for  centuries  had  the  accrued  allegiances  of 
human  piety,  there  must  be  an  immeasurable  knowl 
edge  of  good  and  evil;  that  the  history  of  Christianity 
was  a  development  of  individuality  in  order  that  the 
individual  might  be  sacrificed,  and  that  in  the  light 
of  these  verities  there  must  be  rules  and  precedents 
which  judged,  more  fundamentally  than  he  could,  even 
so  special  a  person  as  she.  Her  ignorance  had  never 
yet  so  caught  and  claimed  his  pity  as  in  the  instants 
while  he  watched  her.  It  seemed  to  him  that  there 
existed  too  final  a  separation  between  her  and  any 
act  of  prayer.  He  found  himself  gripped  by  the  wish 
that  he  could  have  been  surer  of  what  her  motive  might 
have  been,  in  coming  there;  and  as  he  slipped  out, 
abandoning  her  to  whatever  her  communion  was,  old 
Lacy  rose  vividly  in  his  mind  and  he  wondered  what 
any  deity  could  conceivably  be,  to  whom  she  could 
bring  herself  to  pray. 


[88] 


VII 


"^7"OU  know,  it's  a  wonder  to  me  why  on  earth 
|    you  came!" 

As  she  spoke,  Olive  had  turned  to  Devon  in 
the  seat  of  the  motor,  so  close  to  him  that  her  wrap 
brushed  against  his  arm.  He  could  see  the  raillery  in 
her  eyes  and  the  accent  at  the  corners  of  her  lips; 
and  it  occurred  to  him,  with  a  touch  of  surprise,  that 
the  arresting  thing  about  her  words  should  be  their 
complete  lack  of  either  challenge  or  appeal,  and  the 
vivid  ring  of  their  truth. 

He  had  motored  down,  in  the  same  morning,  from 
Wickford,  where  he  had  arrived  only  the  day  before. 
For  more  than  two  months  he  had  imagined  their 
meeting;  it  had  hung  before  him  through  the  last 
weeks  of  a  busy  winter,  tinged  all  his  activities  with 
the  colour  of  its  possibilities,  and  made  his  silences 
replete.  From  the  time  he  had  left  Wickford,  in 
early  March,  these  pictures  had  arisen  in  his  mind. 
He  could  close  his  eyes  and  see  the  manner  in  which 
her  light  self-possession  would  hold,  the  quick  sur 
prise  of  her  smile  and  the  way  her  eyebrows  might 
rise,  with  their  habitual  suggestion  scarcely  so  much 
of  a  tangible  astonishment  and  more  as  if  she  were 
struck,  within  herself,  by  what  no  one  else  was  agile 
enough  to  see.  When  he  had  greeted  her,  an  hour 
before,  following  close  on  the  heels  of  the  telegram  he 
had  sent  her,  she  had  been  so  like  his  vision  of  her,  in 
all  its  forms,  that  the  confirmation  was  a  delicate  shock 

[89] 


ASCENT 

of  pleasure.  She  was  sitting  in  front  of  the  little  coal 
fire,  in  what  had  been  Mr.  Lacy's  chair,  and  she  had 
not  risen  as  he  entered.  She  merely  turned,  to  look 
over  her  shoulder  at  him,  with  her  book  laid  on  her 
knee  and  her  hands  clasped  on  it;  and  her  eyebrows 
had  lifted  and  her  smile  run  over  her  face  just  as  his 
imagination  had  prophesied. 

"So  you're  really  here!"  she  exclaimed. 

"But  surely  you  got  my  wire,  saying  I'd  reached 
Wickford  last  night,  and  that  I'd  arrive — if  you  didn't 
mind — early  this  afternoon!" 

"Oh,  it  was  the  wire  that  put  the  final  touch  to  my 
disbelief!  Before — since  you  left — you'd  been  just 
someone  I  remembered  to  have  seen,  someone  whom 
I  could  believe  in  because  you  were  so  far  off.  The 
wire  made  you  positive  and  human,  something  which 
I  knew  must  go  wrong  because,"  her  touch  was  light 
ness  itself,  "it  would  be  too  nice  if  it  came  true." 

Devon  still  held  the  hand  she  had  given  him.  "Has 
everything  gone  wrong  since  I've  seen  you?" 

"How  could  everything  go  wrong  when  nothing 
whatever  has  happened?"  she  had  rejoined  easily; 
then  she  had  suddenly  risen,  with  her  book  falling  to 
the  floor.  "If  you  knew  how  tired  I  am  of  this  room! 
Have  you  your  motor  here — yes?  Do  you  think  it's 
too  cold  for  you  to  drive  me  out  to  the  hills  somewhere, 
so  that  I  can  draw  breath?  No?  Very  well,  then  .  .  ." 

She  had  spoken  very  little  while  they  ran  along  the 
long  Ware  road  which  bent  to  the  south  except,  every 
now  and  then,  to  direct  him.  "There's  a  road — not 
too  rough — which  goes  back  and  up  amongst  the  hills; 
at  least  we  shan't  meet  Ware  on  it!  Long  Hill — you 
must  have  heard  of  it;  it's  the  hill  you  see  to  the  east, 

[90] 


ASCENT 

from  the  train.  With  a  car  like  this  we  can  get  easily 
to  within  a  climb  of  the  summit;  and  perhaps  we 
shan't  be  too  late  for  an  early  sunset." 

They  had  struck  from  the  highway  a  mile  or  so 
out  of  the  village  and  turned,  as  she  had  predicted, 
into  a  little  travelled  road  which  at  once  became  steep. 
In  the  pale  green  of  May,  the  fields  which  rippled  away 
on  either  hand  showed  the  rich  brown  of  the  soil 
between  the  young  shoots.  The  sun  was  in  their  faces, 
and  everywhere  the  clear  shadowless  light  fell  with  the 
delicate  spring  radiance.  The  sharpness  which  still 
hung  in  the  air  blent  with  the  smell  of  fresh  earth  and 
the  swollen  flow  of  a  stream,  to  the  right  of  the  road. 
But  even  in  this  season,  when  the  stir  of  cultivation 
was  only  in  its  first  flush,  Devon  saw  how  speedily  the 
country  became  stern.  The  fields  were  poorer  and 
the  pastures  rougher  with  the  miles;  and  finally  there 
was  visible  only  a  solitary  farmhouse  of  battered  grey 
boards,  with  its  barns  in  decay  and  its  curtainless  win 
dows  half  broken,  as  if  it  stood  as  a  final  attestation 
of  the  hopelessness  of  maintaining  the  decencies  of 
life  in  such  difficult  conditions.  When  this  fell  behind 
them  the  road  itself  became  a  track;  and  half  a  mile 
further  Olive  motioned  him  to  stop. 

She  had  briefly  nodded  when  he  asked  if  she 
were  able  for  the  climb,  and  he  had  helped  her  over 
the  broken  remains  of  a  stone  wall  and  seen  her  bend 
herself  for  the  ascent.  The  slant  of  the  hill  was  now 
so  steep  that,  as  she  preceded  him,  he  could  see  her 
outlined  against  the  blue-grey  sky.  He  traced  the 
nervous  fineness  of  all  her  movements,  the  flexibility  of 
her  thin  ankles  and  the  free  sway  of  her  waist.  Every 
now  and  then  she  shook  her  head  silently,  to  his 


ASCENT 

remonstrance  that  she  mustn't  try  it  too  fast.  They 
had  made  their  way  for  perhaps  fifty  yards,  over 
ground  which  grew  every  instant  more  broken,  when 
he  began  to  divine  that  their  destination  was  at  hand. 
Turning  back,  he  could  see  the  sides  of  the  eminence 
fall  away  in  contours  which  immediately  below  them 
were  steep,  but  which  beyond  that  dropped  with  the 
long  undulations  of  the  base  of  a  mountain.  The 
country  below  was  wrapped  in  a  pale  veil  of  light, 
scarcely  a  mist  as  much  as  an  exhalation  of  the  earth. 
The  green  was  so  soft  that  it  verged  on  grey  and  the 
grey,  in  the  distances,  had  the  tenuosity  of  silver.  A 
suspense  like  the  suspense  of  premonition  lay  on  the 
far  fields;  and  over  the  desiccated  stretches  nearer 
them,  the  stillness  hung  like  a  last  breath  of  winter. 

As  they  paused  Devon  saw  Olive's  eyes  sweep  the 
horizon.  Throughout  the  climb  she  had  kept  the  clear 
pallor  which  he  thought  her  greatest  beauty;  and  he 
gave  himself  time  to  trace  in  the  quiver  of  her  throat 
her  quickened  breathing,  before  he  spoke. 

"But  of  course  you  knew  I'd  come!"  he  broke  out, 
as  he  recovered  from  the  pressure  of  his  thoughts. 
"It's  been  sufficiently  obvious — hasn't  it? — that  I'd 
have  to!" 

"Sometimes  I've  felt  so  sure  you  wouldn't"  .  .  .  she 
hesitated  and  waited. 

"Tell  me,"  said  Devon  abruptly,  "have  you  thought 
of  me  at  all,  in  these  last  weeks?  What  have  you  done? 
What  haven't  you  done?" 

"What  have  I  done — !"  Her  eyes  were  still  rest 
lessly  searching  the  outline,  against  the  sky,  of  the 
farthest  hills.  "I've  tried  to  hold  life  together.  That 
sounds  absurd  to  you,  doesn't  it?  I've  tried  to  deal 

[92] 


ASCENT 

with  all  sorts  of  little  things,  and  littlest  of  all  my 
father.  You  don't  know  my  father!  Poor  dear,  he's 
rather  dreadful!  If  I  were  a  sentimentalist,  I  should 
say  I'd  tried  to  keep  from  going  mad  from  loneliness; 
as  it  is,  I'll  say  I've  been  reduced  to  being  careful  to 
dress  myself  every  night  for  dinner,  as  if  it  were  a 
real  dinner.  That's  how  one  keeps  up,  you  know — 
when  one's  very  miserable — the  thing  called  courage." 

His  sense  of  an  irony  in  her  appeal  seemed  to  him  to 
rise  and  fall  with  the  variant  inflexions  of  her  voice. 

"At  least  you've  known,"  he  said  in  a  lowered  tone, 
"that  there  was  one  person  whose  thoughts  clung  about 
whatever  you  did." 

Her  eyes  brushed  quickly  over  him  for  an  instant 
and  then  returned  to  the  distance.  "Have  I?  And 
what  reason  had  I  to  know  it?  I'm  not  a  person  to 
build  castles  in  Spain;  I'm  too  used  to  the  brutalities 
of  fact." 

"But  you've  guessed  all  I  felt — all  it  was  only  con 
siderate  to  you  to  feel — of  the  obligation  not  to  hurry 
you.  You're  far  younger  than  I,  you're  completely 
alone,  and  you've  had  this  winter  a  great  loss.  But 
you've  known — you  must  have  known — all  that  was 
under  my  silence." 

She  shook  her  head.  "I've  known  nothing.  I 
haven't  myself,  those  delicacies  of  imagination  and  of 
feeling.  .  .  ." 

She  stopped.  Devon  felt  the  tensity  of  her  pause; 
and  suddenly  he  was  aware  that  she  was  quivering 
and  that  her  hands  had  rigidly  clasped  each  other. 
She  wheeled  around  upon  him,  with  her  face  darkened. 

"I  don't  see  why  I  came  here! "  she  exclaimed.  "I've 
always  detested  this  place — always.  Grandfather  and 

[93] 


ASCENT 

I  sometimes  drove  up,  in  summer,  in  the  last  years  he 
was  strong,  and  he  made  phrases  about  the  illusion 
of  distance  and  the  bad  poetry  that  the  mere  mass  of 
the  mountains  inspired,  and  all  that.  But  I  always 
hated  it,  even  when  I  was  tiny;  it's  always  made  me 
feel  helpless,  reduced  to  nothing  .  .  ." 

She  broke  her  phrase  sharply.  "You  mustn't  marry 
me — no,  you  mustn't  want  to.  It  will  spoil  everything 
for  you.  Can't  you  see  that  I'm  I — that  I  can't  be  your 
idea  of  me?  I'm  governed  by  laws  of  my  own,  and 
they're  not  yours.  Oh,  don't  think  I've  lost  my  senses. 
I  know  what  it  would  mean."  She  flung  back  her 
head.  "No,  I  tell  you  it's  hopeless." 

Devon  had  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders.  Her 
face  swam  uncertainly  before  him.  His  eyes  were  full 
of  the  effulgence  of  that  future  which,  in  an  instant,  had 
sprung  into  being  and  lay  extended  at  his  feet  like  the 
spread  beauties  of  the  country  below.  Through  it  all 
there  stood  out  in  his  mind  the  fact  that  the  instinct  of 
his  nascent  tenderness  had  been  right.  She  wasn't  only 
the  compound  of  her  confused  inheritances.  What  had 
beckoned  him  on,  what  he  felt  he  might  call  the  pilgrim 
soul  in  her,  was  extant  and  real.  In  their  briefest 
talks  and  in  her  sharpest  manner,  it  had  survived.  If 
it  had  been  sometimes  submerged,  he  saw  that  it  had 
never  been  completely  absent,  and  the  generosity  of 
her  gesture  had  thrown  it  into  sudden  light. 

She  continued  to  look  at  him,  with  so  absorbed  a 
fixity  that  it  seemed  to  him  to  expose  all  her  mind,  in 
a  simplicity  which  touched  the  elemental.  Beneath 
his  hands,  as  he  still  held  her  and  as  he  heard  himself 
reassure  and  quiet  her,  he  could  feel  the  subsidence  of 
the  storm  which  had  swept  her,  as  if  its  gust  were 

[94] 


ASCENT 

going;  and  when,  a  moment  later,  she  bent  her  head 
and  began  to  cry,  he  understood  his  conquest  of  her 
resolution. 

He  felt  it  all  the  more  evident  a  sign  of  the  depths 
to  which  she  had  been  shaken  that  she  did  not  speak. 
Her  silence  to  him  was  as  replete  as  her  acquiescence. 
He  had  never  thought  her  lovelier  than  at  this  moment, 
with  both  her  physical  and  mental  rigidity  collapsed 
and  all  the  fluidity  of  her  youth  apparent.  As  they 
turned  to  go  down  the  hill,  with  their  silence  still 
holding,  Devon  looked  behind  him.  There  seemed  to 
him  to  be,  in  the  violet  and  green  beauty  of  the  spring 
evening,  some  quality  which  gave  it  an  entity  and 
almost  a  heart.  The  farthest  hills  had  in  their  outline 
a  sudden  poignancy  of  loveliness,  whose  quality  cor 
responded  with  the  difficult  and  mute  stages  of  his  dis 
parate  life  and  its  final  flow  into  a  definite  channel. 
The  tremulously  still  tree  tops  below  had  the  delicate 
movement,  as  it  struck  him,  of  nascent  feeling.  The 
isolation  itself  enclosed  them  with  the  sense  of  a  wide 
sympathy;  and  he  felt  that  in  looking  back  he  would 
always  think  of  the  hour  and  the  place  as  having  had 
a  definite  personification,  large  enough  to  measure  the 
spaces  of  his  own  dedication  and  yet  so  nearly  human 
that  they  were  like  a  warm  hand  laid  on  his  happiness. 

Olive  had  said  nothing  more  than  a  low  word  of 
thanks,  when  he  put  her  into  her  seat  in  the  car  and 
folded  the  rugs  over  her  knees.  Between  her  soft  hat 
and  the  high  collar  of  her  furs,  Devon  could  see  that 
her  face  was  white  with  fatigue  and  her  eyes  sombre. 
The  light  was  fading  with  the  instants,  and  they  began, 
with  some  difficulty,  to  make  their  slow  way  down. 

[951 


ASCENT 

Once  or  twice  he  turned  to  satisfy  himself  that  she 
was  covered  and  shielded,  and  then  he  relapsed  again 
into  all  the  tacit  implications  of  their  silence. 

The  track  had  merged  into  the  rough  beginnings 
of  a  road  when  Devon  paused  to  deal  with  some  diffi 
culty  in  switching  on  the  lights  of  the  car.  As  he 
drew  up  the  noise  of  hoofs  disengaged  itself  from  the 
whir  of  the  engine,  and  an  open  trap  approached  them 
from  the  left.  There  was  from  that  direction  scarcely 
more  of  a  road  than  that  which  lay  in  front  of  them; 
but  as  his  eyes  penetrated  the  obscurity  he  saw  that  it 
led  to  the  half -shattered  farmhouse  which  he  had 
noticed  during  their  ascent.  There  was  no  light  visible 
and  he  could  discern  only  its  broken  outline,  against 
a  sky  which  was  almost  as  dark  as  the  roof;  but  he 
made  out  that  in  the  doorway  stood  a  tall  woman,  the 
gleam  of  whose  face  and  hands  he  could  trace,  and 
who  was  watching  the  road  with  an  absorption  of 
curiosity  which  might  be  expected  in  so  desolate  a 
spot. 

The  trap  had  now  reached  the  point  where  the  two 
paths  converged,  and  its  driver  stopped  with  the  evident 
intention  of  letting  the  car  precede.  A  voice,  coming 
through  the  dusk,  struck  Devon  with  the  surprise  of 
complete  incongruity,  in  its  loud  note  of  a  friendly 
cheerfulness. 

"Why,  Olive,  it's  you!  To  think  of  it!  It's  a  long 
enough  ride,  isn't  it? — even  for  people  as  used  to  it  as 
I  am.  I  don't  see  that  they've  done  much  to  the  roads 
this  spring,  do  you?  I  tell  father  there's  not  much 
good  in  his  being  a  Selectman.  No,  don't  bother  about 
me;  please  go  on  ahead!  I've  no  lantern,  but  that 
doesn't  matter.  The  light'll  last  long  enough.  Good 

[96] 


ASCENT 

night ! "  The  driver  evidently  turned  over  her  shoulder. 
"Good  night,  Lizzie!" 

The  light  wagon  rattled  to  one  side;  Devon  started 
the  car,  and  in  a  second  they  had  passed  beyond  it. 
He  was  absorbing  himself  in  the  difficulties  of  prog 
ress  over  the  roughened  road-bed  when  he  became 
aware  that  Olive's  hand  lay  on  his  arm. 

"Abby!"  she  said,  with  her  voice  still  low.  "Of  all 
impossibilities!  Abby,  coming  up  here  to  see  Lizzie 
Truslow  .  .  ." 

"Who's  Abby,  my  dear  child?  And  whoever  she  is, 
why  should  she  so  surprise  you?" 

"Abby,  if  you  must  know,  is  my  cousin."  The 
softness  of  her  tone  had  diminished.  "She's  the 
only  daughter — the  round,  middle-aged  daughter — of 
Uncle  Joseph  Trail,  who's  the  breath  of  Ware.  There's 
not  an  angle  to  her  mind,  not  a  hope  for  her.  They  live, 
she  and  her  father,  in  a  house  which  is  considered  the 
best  house  in  Ware.  Abby  guides  the  taste  of  the 
Book  Club,  she  tells  them  what  music  to  buy  for 
their  pianolas;  and  to  think  of  her  here  .  .  .  !" 

"Still,  I  don't  see  ...  ,"  said  Devon. 

"You'd  see  if  you  saw  Uncle  Joseph  Trail.  No — he 
simply  can't  know  she  comes!  Otherwise  it's  past 
imagination.  Uncle  Joseph  sweeps  the  Lizzie  Truslows 
out  of  his  life  as  he'd  sweep  the  mud  from  his  doorstep. 
And  that  when  all  Ware — at  his  orders — stoned  her, 
Abby  should  actually  come  to  see  her,  and  evidently 
often.  .  .  .  It's  beyond  solution!  Lizzie,  you  see," 
her  eyes  were  hard  with  her  amusement  as  they  turned 
to  him,  through  the  dim  light,  "is  what  grandfather 
used  to  call  the  fine  perfection  of  a  sinner." 

Devon,  with  his  free  hand,  pulled  her  rugs  more 
[97] 


ASCENT 

closely  about  her.    "I  must  say  I  think  it's  rather  nice 
of  her — of  your  cousin,  you  know." 

He  heard  that  her  intonation  had  changed  to  a 
quality  like  the  glance  he  had  caught  from  her.  "I 
suspect  you're  a  person  who  is  imposed  on  by  those 
things!  Abbys  and  Lizzies — they're  made  for  each 
other;  one  to  commit  sins,  and  the  other  to  rescue. 
Abby  must  be  developing  what  grandfather  loved  to 
define  as  the  dangerous  imagination  of  uninstructed 
people;  and  Lizzie,  I  suppose,  relives  the  pleasure  of 
all  the  dreadful  things  she  did,  when  she  confesses 
them!"  He  felt  again  the  touch  of  her  look.  "I  sup 
pose  you  think  it's  too  scandalous — to  see  things  as 
clearly  as  that!" 

Devon's  smile  hesitated.  "You'll  not  trick  me  into 
condemning  you.  I  think  it's  only  very  ignorant." 

"Perhaps  it  is! "  She  turned  away,  restlessly.  "Yes, 
you  turn  here.  You  must  drive  me  back  to  realities 
now.  And  you  must  stay  to  dine  and  see  father.  I 
know  it  will  be  ridiculous  because  everything  he  does 
is  ridiculous;  but  I  suppose  it's  necessary.  .  .  .  Can 
you  ever  forgive  me  for  bringing  you  this  long  way? 
And  at  the  end  of  it —  '  she  drew  a  quick  sigh, — 
"you've  found  only  an  illusion  of  me!" 

The  throng  of  impressions  and  sensations  in  him 
was  too  varied  for  him  to  answer  her.  Before  they 
turned  into  the  lighter  high  road  and  left  the  shadows 
sinking  into  the  hills,  he  drew  together  her  bare  fingers 
and  kissed  them.  There  was  something  peculiarly  sym 
pathetic  to  him  in  the  fact  that  this  should  be  the  first 
sign  of  his  feeling  since  he  had  acknowledged  it.  The 
act  held  all  of  the  quality  which  was  its  foundation; 
and  the  light  responsive  pressure  of  her  hand  against 

[98] 


ASCENT 

his  lips  made  him  think  of  her  eyes  as  they  had 
questioned  the  spaces  of  the  horizon. 

He  had  never  imagined  her  lovelier  than  when  she 
came  down  and  took  her  seat  opposite  her  father  in 
the  narrow  dining  room.  To  see  her  in  the  mediocrity 
of  the  house  was  to  have  their  incongruity  made  precise 
and  visible;  that  had  struck  him  long  before,  and  the 
contrast  of  the  aged  artistocratic  streak  in  her  with 
what  was  so  perfectly  specious.  Her  hands  and  her 
carriage  marked  the  drama  between  themselves  and 
Ware  as  old  Lacy's  diatribes  had  never  marked  it,  and 
its  futile  waste  had  never  seemed  to  Devon  more 
obvious.  She  had  in  her,  he  thought,  the  aggressive 
force  which  reduced  the  accompaniments  of  life  to  a 
background.  He  could  fancy  that  as  she  made  even 
this  ugliness  unnoticeable,  so  she  would  also  reduce, 
in  its  different  degree,  a  surrounding  of  beauty  to  out 
line  her  own  beauty.  But  as  he  watched  the  high  poise 
of  her  head  he  wondered  if  what  most  of  all  made  that 
beauty  was  not  her  spirited  readiness  to  battle  with 
any  future.  Would  all  of  her  life  be  in  terms  of  con 
quest?  He  felt  himself  caught  by  the  question.  The 
clearance  of  her  feeling  had  been  like  the  clearance  of 
a  sky.  Not  a  trace  of  her  softness  was  left;  and  as 
he  listened  to  her  Devon  recognised  that  her  lucidity 
had  its  keenest  edge,  as  if  a  night  of  wind  and  rain 
had  been  succeeded,  as  he  had  often  seen  it  in  the  Ware 
valleys,  by  the  magnificence  of  a  north-west  day.  Yet 
here  too  she  had  her  effect  of  poignancy  for  him. 
Beneath  the  brilliancy  of  happiness  in  her  eyes,  the 
tonic  of  her  excitement  and  her  amusement  at  the 
astonished  pleasure  of  Philip  and  her  old  nurse,  there 
seemed  to  him  to  underlie,  more  visibly  than  he  had 

[99] 


ASCENT 

ever  seen  it,  her  suggestion  of  a  gallantry  which  had 
the  touch  of  a  light  desperation  in  its  confidence. 

Philip  fixed  him  over  his  glasses,  with  an  apparent 
incapacity  to  cease  his  murmur  that  it  was  all  very 
extraordinary.  He  shook  his  head,  with  no  attempt  to 
reply  to  Olive's  gay  assurances  that  it  was  really  the 
only  orthodox  thing  she'd  ever  done — to  be  engaged  to 
be  married.  All  he  needed,  she  said,  was  someone  to 
whom  he  could  talk  about  it,  and  once  he  put  it  into 
his  own  phrases  of  sentiment,  it  would  all  seem  quite 
simple.  What  evidently  disconcerted  him  more  than 
the  note  to  which  he  was  so  palpably  accustomed  was 
Devon's  treatment  of  him.  Devon  had  begun  to  talk  of 
the  country  from  the  point  of  its  formation,  asked 
Philip  a  question  or  two,  and  drawn  from  him  answers 
about  quarrying,  in  that  part  of  the  state,  which,  as 
an  architect,  he  said  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  not  to 
have  known.  Would  Philip  tell  him  more  of  the  things 
he  had  picked  up,  from  the  gossip  of  the  outlying 
farmers  who  drove  in  at  times  to  Ware  and  who  must 
know  all  about  the  lay  of  the  land  and  the  composition 
of  the  soil?  He  was,  he  supposed,  going  down  to 
New  York  in  the  next  days  to  see  his  mother  and 
to  tell  her  his  news;  but  when  he  came  back  Philip 
must  come  up  to  Wickford  to  lunch,  where  his  father 
would,  he  knew,  be  so  glad  to  welcome  him. 

Philip  could  only  demur  helplessly;  he  was,  he  said, 
puzzled  by  the  changes  in  the  railway  time  and  he 
always  caught  a  cold  in  the  train.  But  as  he  listened 
to  these  vague  attempts  at  appreciation,  what  had 
struck  Devon  was  Olive.  They  had  just  finished 
dining,  and  she  had  suddenly  dropped  her  fruit  knife 
to  her  plate  with  an  impatience  as  sharp  as  the  ring 

[100] 


ASCENT 

of  the  metal  as  it  fell.  She  broke  off  Philip's  wander 
ing  phrases  and  rose;  and  as  Devon  followed  her  to 
the  door,  she  turned  to  him  with  a  tinge  in  her  voice 
which  seemed  to  reduce  his  attempts  to  futility.  "I 
suppose  you  will  insist  on  being  kind  to  father!"  He 
had  felt  her  raillery  extend  for  an  instant  to  him.  "But 
don't  lower  the  action  of  your  taste  by  liking  him!" 

The  pressure  of  thoughts  which  the  evening  had 
brought  him  seemed  to  Devon  to  simplify  itself  in  a 
central  theme  when,  towards  eleven  o'clock,  they  stood 
together  for  a  moment  on  the  verandah,  before  he  got 
into  his  car.  She  had  followed  him  out  and  in  the  dark, 
with  her  swift  unexpectedness,  she  had  slipped  her 
hand  through  his  arm.  The  rarity,  as  he  divined,  of 
such  signs  in  her  made  the  gesture  rarely  valuable.  As 
he  closed  his  hand  over  hers  he  seemed  to  enter  some 
stronghold  of  her  thought;  and  he  had  suddenly  bent 
his  face  to  hers,  in  the  obscurity. 

She  raised  her  hand  hurriedly  to  her  cheek,  as  his 
lips  left  it,  and  he  could  make  out  through  the  dim 
light  the  altered  expression  of  her  eyes. 

He  smiled  at  her  surprise;  didn't  it  strike  her,  he 
asked,  that  when  he  said  he  cared  for  her,  he 
meant  it? 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so;  you  see" — she  hesitated — "I've 
never  thought  much  about  those  things.  No,  it's 
strange;  but  really  I've  never  thought  about  them." 
She  was  silent  for  an  instant.  "And  you  won't  think 
that  I'm  nothing  but  what  I  seem?" 

Devon  had  not  answered  her  at  once.  He  had  looked 
up  at  the  starless  sky  which,  beyond  the  scattered 
lights  and  the  soft  stillness  of  the  village,  hung  above 
them.  The  air  was  saturated  with  the  cold  freshness 

[101] 


ASCENT 

of  May  and  with  the  mystery  of  imprecision;  and  as 
his  eyes  grew  accustomed  to  the  darkness  he  could 
trace  the  bare  trees,  stretching  long  fine  fingers  to 
the  blue  of  the  night  like  delicate  antennae  of  percep 
tion. 

"I  shall  always  be  a  little  shocked,  I  think,  at  the 
only  things  you  understand  in  me  .  .  .  !" 

He  had  broken  off  his  phrase;  but  as  he  turned  back 
to  her  he  had  for  the  first  time  felt,  through  the 
obscurity,  that  her  eyes  searched  his  face  and  tried 
to  follow  his  thoughts. 


[102] 


II 


VIII 

HE  had  always  thought  it  an  amazing  scene,  one 
less  of  brilliancy  than  of  dexterities  of  arrange 
ment;  but  as  he  slipped  into  a  box,  with  the 
rest  of  the  house  in   darkness   and   an   act  of   the 
opera  in  play,  Devon  had  never  more  keenly  felt,  in 
his  idle  way,  the  latent  uncertainty  of  this  New  York 
life;   that  all  its  current  left  no  bed  rich  enough  to 
form  a  past,  and  that  its  lack  of  any  form  and  standard 
had  divested  it  of  all  the  chances  of  fostering  personal 
history. 

The  months,  which  had  now  run  to  almost  a  year, 
since  he  had  stood  by  Olive  for  the  seconds  on  the 
little  porch  at  Ware  and  felt  the  flow  of  his  life  bend 
and  turn  to  a  change,  had  been  punctuated  by  a  per 
petual  series  of  events;  events  all  deriving  if  not  in 
action  at  least  in  consequence  from  that  night  and 
from  the  consciousness  of  the  implication  of  all  his 
feeling  in  its  issues.  He  had  always  lacked  the  instinct 
to  associate  and  dissociate  his  acts  and  to  trace  them 
back  to  their  concurrent  commencements;  but  with 
his  married  life  and  his  complete  absorption  in  it,  he 
was  aware  that  he  had  Olive's  processes  to  trace,  Olive 
as  a  test  and  Olive  as  a  conclusion;  and  the  impulse 
to  order  his  thoughts  had  crept  into  the  creation  of 
his  feeling  for  her. 

Their  marriage  had  been  preceded,  in  the  two  or 
three  weeks  of  hurried  preparation,  by  his  difficulties 
with  his  father's  view  of  it  no  less  than  with  his 

[105] 


ASCENT 

mother's;  difficulties  which  he  was  entirely  prepared 
to  regard  as  futile  and  unreasonable,  but  which  never 
theless  seemed  to  him  symbolic  of  the  laws,  which  had 
never  failed  to  operate,  of  the  failure  of  his  natural 
expectancies  of  sympathy.  His  mother's  objections 
had  been  the  more  phrased,  and  therefore  the  less 
unmanageable,  of  the  two.  It  was  nonsense — her  mind 
could  not  rise  beyond  this — that  with  all  of  his  world 
to  choose  from,  with  his  rising  talent  and  his  certainty 
of  a  large  income,  he  should  marry  a  provincial  girl 
from  heaven  knew  where.  The  word  provincial 
enclosed  the  kernel  of  her  disapproval,  and  she  repeated 
it,  in  Devon's  view,  not  to  satiety  but  to  the  point  of 
insanity.  As  she  grew  older,  it  frequently  struck  him 
that  experience  came  to  her  only  as  a  constant  deple 
tion,  as  the  perpetual  immaturity  of  her  face  increased 
in  direct  ratio  to  her  years.  She  had  ended  by  saying 
that  she  would  resign  herself  to  it,  since  she  evidently 
must;  that  from  her  photograph  Olive  evidently  knew 
how  to  wear  her  clothes,  that  she  would  not  come  to 
the  wedding  but  that  she  would  send  a  little  rope  of 
pearls,  and  finally  that  he  too  closely  resembled  his 
father  to  make  any  explanation  of  his  course  easily 
definable. 

Devon  himself  had  never  again  spoken  as  fully  as 
in  their  first  brief  exchange.  But  he  had  tacitly  asked, 
by  his  implications  and  allusions,  if  his  son  could 
suppose  it  agreeable  to  see  him  charted  for  a  worse 
failure  than  his  own;  "and  it  will  be  a  failure — mind!" 
he  had  brought  out  on  the  single  occasion  when  his 
comment  was  direct.  "Worse  than  mine  because  it  will 
be  less  of  an  inevitability  and  more  of  a  mess.  You'll 
understand — the  only  thing  to  do  with  your  mother  was 

[106] 


ASCENT 

to  get  rid  of  her.  I  had  to  let  her  make  me  into  a 
persecutor  or  a  cross  or  something  like  that,  before 
she'd  even  relax  her  grip.  She's  always  had  in  mind,  you 
know,  a  mythical  woman  about  whom  I  lost  my  head 
• — a  low  creature,  a  siren.  Well,  I  let  her  think  it;  if 
she'd  known  it  was  the  jades  on  which  I  spent  my 
income  and  silence  that  I  wanted  to  live  with,  she'd 
never  have  let  me  go.  But  with  you  it  will  be  different. 
That  girl's  got  a  will — more  than  a  will,  an  obsession." 

"You  must  remember  that  she's  very  young,  and 
that  she's  all  hunger;"  Devon  had  tried  to  put  it 
lightly. 

"Greed's  the  word  for  her;"  his  father's  terseness 
was  marked.  "She's  all  greed.  She's  got  more  greed 
than  she's  got  soul."  He  had  then  wandered  easily  off 
into  the  question  of  what  soul  was,  apart  from  the  soul 
he  felt  to  be  in  his  stones — if  it  weren't  always  a 
crystallisation  of  implicit  and  perfect  beauty,  and  if 
human  beings  hadn't  ruined  it,  with  their  noxious 
attempts  at  reform  and  elaboration.  He  could  do  these 
things  divertingly;  but  his  son  did  not  lose  the  point 
he  had  meant  to  make.  The  fact  that  he  did  not  define 
it  left  none  the  less  apparent  his  pride  and  his  dis 
appointment.  Devon  didn't  quite  know  what  his  father 
had  hoped — probably  that  he  should  go  on  from  success 
to  success  in  architecture  and  that  his  human  relations 
should  be  confined  to  a  misanthropic  scepticism.  This 
ignorance,  in  its  pathos  and  its  absurdity,  laid  another 
deterrent  hand  on  his  shoulder;  a  hand  which  never 
for  a  moment  touched  his  confidence,  but  which 
increased,  to  a  point  at  which  he  had  never  before 
realised  it,  his  inherent  sense  of  isolation. 

Just  how  deep  the  roots  of  his  resolution  had  struck 
[107] 


ASCENT 

was  progressively  apparent  to  him  when  he  faced  again 
his  usual  world  of  contacts,  with  all  of  them  changed 
by  the  change  in  him.  The  loose  years  behind  him 
drifted  out  of  sight  with  little  to  mark,  in  his  memory, 
what  their  passage  had  been.  All  his  vague  potentiali 
ties  had  been  caught  up  in  a  hand  of  purpose  which 
gave  them  a  sudden  form  and  force.  What  he  had 
wanted,  he  saw,  had  been  more  than  an  incentive;  he 
had  needed  a  stimulant.  The  magic  interplay  of 
response  penetrated,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  fastnesses 
of  his  inarticulacy;  and  he  began  to  understand  that 
Olive  had  touched  his  life  at  that  unique  and  central 
point  which  meant  a  surrender  of  all  his  resistances  to 
surrender  and  a  dedication  of  the  mind  itself  to 
change. 

Their  first  weeks  and  months  had  led  them  step  by 
step  through  all  the  surprises  of  a  new  existence. 
Devon  was  too  sensitive  to  take  each  of  its  stages  as 
anything  less  than  it  was,  and  each  new  happiness 
and  each  added  intimacy  came  to  him  with  the  fresh 
ness  of  discovery.  He  had  scarcely  admitted  to  him 
self  that  the  time  was  so  astonishing  to  them  both 
—to  the  long  stricture  of  his  reticence  as  well  as  to 
her  inexperience — that  it  could  not  measure  itself 
against  any  usual  scale.  They  had  passed  the  summer 
at  a  camp  of  his  father's  in  the  mountains,  and  the 
days  remained  suffused  for  Devon  in  the  haze  of  his 
earliest  feeling  for  her.  Each  slant  of  her  smile  had 
meant,  to  his  expectancy,  not  only  what  he  had  but 
what  the  future  would  bring  him  of  her.  It  had  not 
been  until  the  autumn,  when  he  saw  her  confronted 
by  the  exact  facts  of  their  future,  that  he  had  caught 
himself  wondering  whether  her  gaiety  and  softness  were 

[108] 


ASCENT 

so  much  real  in  themselves  as  inevitable  responses.  As 
their  days  began  to  assume  the  first  outlines  of  habit, 
he  saw  with  how  firm  a  hand  she  manipulated  his  feel 
ing.  He  wondered — the  thought  reverted  to  him  now, 
as  he  caught,  across  the  house,  the  glimpse  for  which 
he  had  been  watching  of  her  dark  head,  held  at  so 
fine  an  angle  above  the  dead  white  of  her  velvet  dress 
— if  all  women  were  as  much  more  simple  than  men 
in  such  a  relation.  He  was  perpetually  restricted  by 
the  numberless  complexities  of  his  consideration; 
while  she,  with  a  complete  directness,  held  him 
inevitably  where  she  wanted  him.  In  their  closest 
moments  she  escaped  him;  and  he  had  never  faced 
the  fact  as  to  whether  it  were  a  refusal  of  her  feeling, 
or  whether  the  imagination  of  his  own  would  not  always 
leave  her  below  that  place  to  which  he  had  attained 
in  his  response  to  her. 

Devon  had  always  been  amused  by  the  definiteness 
of  purpose  in  the  women  of  his  country  and  their  quick 
ness  in  the  discovery  of  means  to  fulfil  it;  but  Olive's 
definiteness  none  the  less  astonished  him.  He  had  the 
odd  sense  that  once  she  began  to  put  her  wishes  into 
practical  execution,  she  was  completely  on  her  own 
ground.  She  knew  not  only  exactly  how  they  must 
live  and  exactly  what  house  would  be  most  appropriate 
for  them;  she  also  wanted  the  finer  manifestations.  If 
she  spent  days  in  the  sheer  pleasure,  as  she  told  him, 
of  the  shops  and  of  being  able  to  buy  things,  she  had 
too  the  surest  discrimination  between  what  she  did 
and  didn't  want.  She  would  go  from  an  upholsterer's, 
where  they  were  choosing  silks,  or  turn  from  the  selec 
tion  of  the  sable  muff  he  had  planned  for  her  Christmas 
present,  to  slip  off  to  the  museum  for  an  hour  amongst 

[109] 


ASCENT 

the  prints;  and  he  understood  that  the  quick  discern 
ment  she  had  inherited  from  her  grandfather  would 
always  give  her  an  ultimate  independence  of  action. 
Her  power  of  absorption  was  at  once  apparent  as 
no  less  deep  than  both  her  perfect  practicality  and  the 
swift  intelligence  of  her  taste.  He  saw  at  each  point  her 
eagerness  to  educate  in  herself  a  finer  perception;  yet  he 
had  the  pervasive  notion,  behind  the  pleasure  with 
which  his  thoughts  followed  her,  that  what  she  lacked, 
in  spite  of  her  rapid  capacity,  was  the  recognition  of 
any  standard  which  would  ever  satisfy  her. 

The  qualities  she  would  manifest  in  her  impact  with 
people  were  made  evident  to  him  in  what  he  felt  to  be 
the  perfectly  composed  comedy  of  her  relations  with 
his  mother.  He  never  watched  them  together  without 
seeing  Mrs.  Devon  fall  into  the  same  position  on  the 
edge  of  her  chair,  with  her  small  jeweled  fingers  folded, 
her  pale  blue  eyes  wide  and  her  elaborate  white  head 
at  an  angle  of  mute  astonishment.  He  had  not  followed 
the  stages  of  their  intercourse,  but  he  guessed  that  it 
had  begun  with  his  mother's  haunting  fear  of  Olive's 
solecisms  and  ended  with  her  equal  fear  of  her  own. 
Olive  dated  and  placed  her.  She  was  everything 
affable  and  charming  to  her  mother-in-law;  but  she 
too  evidently  gave  Mrs.  Devon,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  unbroken  security  of  her  existence,  a  sense  of  her 
ignorances.  Her  relegations  ran  from  Mrs.  Devon's 
comments  on  a  person,  a  book  or  a  situation — which 
she  could  with  a  glance  reduce  to  their  elemental  fra 
gility — to  her  acceptance  of  a  form  or  her  espousal 
of  a  fashion.  New  York,  and  with  it  all  that  had 
made  Mrs.  Devon's  world  compact  and  complete,  was 
after  all,  as  she  reminded  her,  only  representative  of 

[no] 


ASCENT 

one  place,  and  as  such  narrow;  had  it  never  occurred 
to  Mrs.  Devon  that  the  views  of  life  in  any  given 
community,  whether  it  were  New  York  or  Ware,  were 
necessarily  local?  She  herself  wanted  a  wider  range 
— she  wanted  the  world.  Mrs.  Devon,  if  she  could 
not  follow  her,  was  none  the  less  helpless  before  such 
an  extension  of  scale;  and  all  she  could  condense  it  to, 
Devon  saw,  with  a  sense  of  the  unutterable  ironies  of 
progression,  was  a  sudden  conviction  that  she  had  been 
ordering  her  shoes  at  a  wrong  shop  or  miscalculated 
the  angle  of  a  hat. 

He  had  only  to  shift  his  eyes  to  her,  across  the 
darkened  house,  from  where  he  sat  in  his  mother's  box, 
to  renew  his  sense  of  the  perfection  with  which  she 
had  slipped  into  the  conditions  of  her  new  existence. 
To  watch  her  without  interruption,  in  the  anonimity 
of  interest  necessary  in  a  public  place,  with  the  sense 
of  his  possessorship  of  her  more  intimate  and  the 
sense  of  her  inaccessibility  more  acute,  gave  his  vision 
of  her  a  sudden  different  angle.  He  found  himself 
smiling,  in  the  obscurity,  at  his  recurrent  notion  that 
she  was  the  embodiment  of  the  first  stage  of  sophistica 
tion  of  her  country.  The  excess  and  vulgarism  of  most 
of  the  women  around  her  were  the  last  signs  of  its 
youth.  They  showed  what  had  formed  both  the 
American  weakness  and  the  American  astuteness,  the 
great  American  collections  and  the  American  ignorance, 
and  the  relapse  into  sordidness  of  the  original  American 
sense  of  adventure.  He  felt  as  if  all  these  forces  had 
passed  into  her  ambition  of  ideas,  and  had  become,  in 
her,  a  personal  exemplification. 

She  had  separated  herself  from  her  surroundings 
in  the  brilliancy  of  the  house;  but  when  he  joined  her 

[in] 


ASCENT 

in  the  lobby — he  had  arranged  to  meet  her  and  take 
her  home,  after  a  meeting  which  had  delayed  him  for 
the  early  evening — Devon  thought  that  her  trick  of 
the  accentuation  of  her  personality  was  even  more 
finely  turned.  She  had  left  her  hostess,  and  as  she 
stood  alone,  with  her  furs  drawn  around  her  and  her 
eyes  on  the  long  procession  of  motors  outside,  her 
impenetrable  quality  and  her  ease  in  isolation  were 
such,  he  reflected,  as  few  women  ever  captured. 

Her  face  changed  quickly  as  she  saw  him.  She 
followed  him  out  to  the  waiting  car,  and  when  she 
was  settled  in  her  corner  she  was  full  of  her  usual 
rapid  questions.  How  had  he  enjoyed  the  evening,  and 
how  had  he  liked  her  dress;  and  his  mother — was  she 
still  too  scandalised  because  they  were  doing  the 
drawing-room  walls  in  a  lustreless  white  rather  than 
in  silk? 

"It's  too  incredible  to  her,  but  she  mayn't  mind 
when  it  strikes  her  as  my  economy.  Isn't  is  absurd 
how  easily  a  thing  is  forgiven  if  it  has  a  moral  sound? 
Of  course  I'm  glad  if  it  costs  you  less;  but  then  if  I 
happened  to  prefer  old  brocade — why,  I'm  afraid  I 
should  quite  simply  have  it!" 

She  laughed;  they  had  just  drawn  up  at  their  door, 
and  he  paused  for  a  second  in  the  lit  hallway  while 
she  turned  back  from  the  lowest  stair  to  look  down  at 
him. 

"Every  time  anyone  is  too  uncertain  about  me,  I 
drop  a  hint  that  your  library  was  the  first  room  I 
arranged.  It's  astonishing  how  such  sentimentalities 
hold  people!  The  human  thing  is  the  most  dangerous 
and  delicate  in  the  world,  and  yet  the  moment  you 
seem  to  deal  in  it  they  feel  reassured!  They  think  all 

[112] 


ASCENT 

our  future  is  safe  because  I  myself  sorted  your  books; 
as  if  I  should  have  done  it  if  I  hadn't  preferred  to!  But 
you  were  right  about  the  Forain,  John;  it  will  be 
delightful  over  my  white  mantel.  .  .  .  Come,  I'll  show 
you!" 

She  moved  up  the  stairs  ahead  of  him  with  a  long 
trail  of  her  dress,  as  she  gradually  rose,  drawing  a  line 
of  glimmering  white  in  the  low  light,  and  she  opened, 
on  the  next  landing,  the  door  of  the  little  room  which 
was  particularly  her  own.  Her  pleasure  in  it  had  had 
an  extravagance  which,  in  Devon's  view,  was  often 
reminiscent  of  her  detestation  of  the  little  frame  house 
in  Ware.  The  room  was  white — white,  as  she  had  said, 
being  the  only  thing  possible  for  a  person  as  thin  and 
dark  as  she — and  he  had  brought  colour  to  it  by  every 
little  object  he  had  been  able  to  pick  up  for  her.  It 
was  still  full  of  the  disarrangement  of  their  unsettled 
state,  with  a  long  strip  of  velvet  which  they  were  con 
sidering  stretched  over  the  chairs  and  with  her  books 
strewn  across  the  desk;  but  he  never  saw  her  move 
from  the  light  of  the  white  azaleas  in  the  win 
dow  to  the  light  of  the  fire,  without  evoking  the  contrast 
which  had  made  so  much  of  the  poignancy  of  her 
youth. 

He  laid  his  hand  abruptly  on  her  arm,  as  she  paused 
before  the  mantel  where  the  engraving  stood. 

uDo  you  understand  what  it  means  that — wonderful 
as  you  are — I've  been  able  to  give  you  anything?"  he 
said,  with  his  words  as  sudden  as  his  touch. 

He  was  close  enough  to  see  her  eyebrows  tremble 
for  a  second,  before  they  rose  in  their  accustomed 
motion.  "No,  you're  wrong;  it's  everything  that  you've 
given  me." 


ASCENT 

Devon  smiled.  "Don't  limit  it  by  saying  it's  every 
thing — that  it's  all  accomplished!" 

She  seemed  to  put  this  aside.  "And  don't  you  call 
it  everything  that  you've  been  so  angelic  to  me,  that 
you've  brought  me  to  an  air  I  could  breathe,  that  you've 
given  me  all  that,  what  I  admit,  is  my  rather  exacting 
fancy,  lit  upon — everything,  the  old  harp  downstairs, 
this  room,  the  lovely  Chinese  Chippendale,  and  just 
to-day  the  little  first  edition  of  Poe  there,  which  grand 
father  always  so  longed  for?"  She  shook  her  head, 
with  her  smile  still  on  him.  "That's  the  difference 
between  us;  you  see  infinity  in  something  which  is  to 
me  just — well,  just  a  stage  of  infinity." 

Devon's  hand  tightened  on  her  arm.  "Don't,  my 
dear,  apply  your  criticism  to  what's  rather  beyond 
criticism!" 

She  caught  him  up.  "But  surely  you  never  thought 
that  I  was  going  to  be  satisfied  for  the  rest  of  my  life, 
just  because  your  mother  asked  people  to  lunch  every 
day  to  meet  me  and  because  you  gave  me  a  band  of 
diamonds  for  my  hair!"  She  glanced  in  the  mirror 
over  the  mantel  and  loosened  the  knot  of  her  hair 
under  the  jewels. 

Devon  was  silent;  the  streak  in  her  of  which  he  was 
ceaselessly  aware,  but  which  in  the  passage  of  the  last 
months  had  so  rarely  come  to  light,  had  seemed  in  the 
drift  of  their  few  words  to  flash  suddenly  into  view, 
like  the  steely  line  of  a  river  in  a  wide  landscape. 

"If  I  had  just  ambition,  like  most  of  these  women 
I  see — !  How  simple  ambition  after  all  is!  Your 
mother's  delightful  to  me,  and  so  is  everyone  else. 
There's  nothing  that  isn't  delightful — music,  pictures, 
hundreds  of  things.  If  I  wanted  to  refuse  to  dine  out 

[114] 


ASCENT 

every  night,  I  suppose  I  could;  if  I  wanted  to  see  and 
hear  everything  that's  newest,  or  if  I  wanted  what's 
called  a  motive  or  an  inspiration  or  a  cause — all  those 
things  would  be  easy  enough.  But  curiosity,  you  see, 
is  so  different  from  ambition!" 

Devon  was  still  silent.  The  word  seemed  to  him 
to  express  all  the  penetrative  processes  of  her  edu 
cation.  His  reversion  of  thought  to  her  childhood 
always  touched  his  tenderness,  and  he  dropped  the 
cigarette  he  held  and  laid  his  free  hand  on  her  other 
arm.  "Ah,  Olive,  you're  so  magnificent  and  living's 
so  brutal  .  .  ." 

"Nothing's  brutal  if  you  refuse  to  let  it  be  brutal. 
What  I  want  is  the  whole  thing,  all," — she  drew  a 
deepened  breath,  as  if  the  current  of  her  idea  ran 
through  her;  "oh,  even  the  misery  of  it.  I  want  the 
little  things,  and  I  want  the  world.  Nothing  could  be 
either  too  small  or  too  large  for  me.  You  see  they're 
rather  immense  terms!  But  they're  mine.  When  I 
say  you've  given  me  everything,"  her  gesture  took  in 
the  room,  "I  mean  that  for  this  stage  you've  literally 
given  me  all  I  needed,  every  privilege  and  chance.  You 
understand,  don't  you?" 

She  had  turned  to  him  a  glance  of  appeal,  and  he 
saw  it  stiffen  as  it  met  what  he  was  conscious  must  be 
the  sudden  difference  in  his  own  face.  He  still  held 
her  before  him. 

"Yes;  but  do  you?" 

"Do  I?  Haven't  I  always  understood — grandfather 
used  to  say,  too  much?" 

He  seemed  for  a  moment  to  confront  the  rush  of 
her  confidence,  and  his  eyes  held  her  for  an  instant 
like  his  grasp.  "My  dear,  you're  face  to  face  with  the 

[US] 


ASCENT 

greatest  emotion  living  can  give,  yet  you  don't  see  it!" 
He  shook  his  head.  "Your  ultimate  everything— 
even  yours — will  always  come  back  to  what  one  person 
can  make  you  feel  and  what  you  can  make  one  person 
feel.  That's" — his  shoulders  rose — "oh,  that's  what's 
called  the  miracle  of  existence." 

"But  the  personal  isn't  all  of  experience!"  Her 
voice  had  its  quick  impatience  as  she  broke  in. 

"What  you're  after,  my  dear,  isn't  experience  but 
experiences!  You  don't  see — I  suppose  you're  too 
young  and  too  lovely  to — that  everything's  quantitative 
unless  it's  really  lived.  If  you  don't  recognise  that, 
all  your  famous  curiosity  will  go  to  the  dogs!"  His 
face  had  changed  again  to  its  usual  quiescence,  and 
he  dropped  his  hands  from  her  arms  to  take  another 
cigarette  from  the  box  on  the  mantel.  "So  don't  deny 
the  personal.  It's  rather  wonderful,  you  know,  the 
personal;  or  rather  you  don't  know,  yet,  anything 
about  it!  Come,  it's  really  too  late  for  you!  Yes,  it 
was  just  right,  wasn't  it? — that  line  of  light  for  your 
hair!  I  hesitated  so  long  about  whether  the  diamonds 
ought  to  have  a  clear  edge  or  a  broken  one,  against 
it.  Oh,  and  by  the  way—  '  he  put  his  hand  into  his 
coat,  "I've  something  for  you." 

Olive  stretched  out  her  hand.  Her  head  was  still 
bent  over  the  fire  and  her  thoughts  still  evidently 
moving  in  the  tone  of  their  talk.  "For  me?" 

"Yes;  open  the  box,  and  you'll  see." 

He  drew  out  for  her,  as  she  raised  the  little  lid,  a 
long  coil  of  gold  which  dropped,  as  he  lifted  it,  into  the 
lines  of  a  rosary.  "It's  old  Spanish — you  see?  Isn't 
it  extraordinary?  If  you  knew  who's  sent  it  to  you, 
you'd  know  why!  This  afternoon  I  had  a  telephone 

[116] 


ASCENT 

message  from  Ames — Robert  Ames,  the  priest,  you 
know." 

Olive  was  drawing  the  beads  through  her  fingers, 
with  a  frown  of  concentration.  "I  don't  under 
stand  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  you  must  have  heard  me  speak  of  him!  When 
I  went  up  to  Oxford  for  a  year  he  happened  to  be 
there — just  through  Stonyhurst,  and  giving  a  course 
on  Moral  Philosophy.  Of  course  he  was  already  well 
known,  already  booked  to  be  what  he  is,  and  I  was 
only  an  unattached  young  American.  But  some 
how  we  struck  up  a  real  intimacy,  as  men  do  those 
things." 

"And  he's  here?"  She  hesitated.  "Didn't  I  see  in 
the  papers  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  he  landed  yesterday,  for  his  course  of  lectures 
here;  and  he  rang  me  up  to-day,  from  the  Archbishop's 
where  he's  staying  until  he  can  get  his  own  quarters, 
to  say  I  must  stop  in  to-night,  if  my  meeting  broke 
up  in  time,  just  to  have  a  word  with  him  and  to  take 
you  a  belated  wedding  present.  I  was  able  to  see  him 
for  only  a  second — even  then  there  were  other  people 
waiting  for  him;  but  he  was  just  the  same  Ames  .  .  . 
Oh,  they're  an  amazing  lot,  that  family;  as  amazing 
as  a  thing  like  this!"  He  motioned  to  the  rosary. 
"It's  a  tradition  as  tightly  woven  as  anything  in  the 
world.  They've  been  the  Catholics  of  Catholics  since 
the  eleventh  century,  or  some  such  appalling  time. 
When  I've  stayed  with  them,  in  the  country,  it's  seemed 
quite  natural  to  hear  them  pray  every  day  for  the  con 
version  of  England.  His  brother,  you  know,  is  Arch 
bishop  of  Stoke;  but  it's  Robert,  of  course,  who  is  the 
wonder  .  .  ." 


ASCENT 

He  laid  his  hand  over  hers,  and  touched  the  beads 
through  her  fingers. 

"Just  look  at  the  work  on  each  bead;  and  the 
strength  and  fineness  of  the  links — !  One  gets  some 
faint  idea  of  what  it  means  to  them — to  Catholics;  oh, 
it's  more  than  that — of  what  it  means  to  us  all.  A  thing 
like  this  somehow  stands  for  all  growth,  for  all 
increased  fineness,  for  all  capacity  to  believe."  His 
fingers  closed  closely  on  hers  for  a  second.  "That's, 
my  dear,  what  you  need!" 

"An  Ames?"    Her  eyes  were  again  ironic. 

"A  rosary!"  His  retort  was  as  rapid  as  her  own, 
and  it  ended  in  his  smile.  "Ah  yes,  you  must  see 
Ames.  He's  too  busy,  he  says,  to  come  to  us;  but  he 
wants  you  to  go  to  him,  the  first  day  he  can  rescue  an 
hour  .  ." 


[118] 


IX 

OLIVE  had  left  the  house  a  little  past  four,  on 
the  March  afternoon  whose  greyness  was  full 
of  the  recent  snows.  She  stood  for  a  moment 
on  the  doorstep,  looking  up  and  down  the  irregular  line 
of  the  architecture  of  the  long  street,  with  its  pseudo- 
French  fagades  still  interspersed  with  the  earlier  brown 
stone.  The  interest  with  which  she  had  first  seen  it 
was  still  uppermost  in  her  mind.  Even  the  noises  of 
the  passing  traffic  and  the  closed  security  of  the  narrow 
marble  houses  like  her  own  had  excited  her  imagina 
tion.  Each  detail  in  her  installation  had  not  been  a 
burden  and  an  irritant,  as  Mrs.  Devon  had  pessimisti 
cally  predicted,  but  something  to  linger  over  with 
pleasure.  She  remembered  that  she  had  passed  a  long 
afternoon  in  the  choice  of  her  window  curtains,  and 
she  already  knew  just  how  the  pink  geraniums  in  her 
window  boxes  were  to  be  planted,  in  the  coming  spring. 
It  had  been  an  interest  each  time  her  car  stood  at  the 
curb,  to  take  her  through  the  moving  flow  of  the  city, 
and  she  had  felt  her  vitality  made  more  tonic  by  the 
effervescent  life  in  the  faces  which  passed  her,  as  if 
she  at  last  held  and  fingered  the  brilliant  fabric  which 
was  woven  not  out  of  the  anticipations  she  had  kept  in 
check  but  of  actuality. 

She  wondered  if  it  were  perhaps  the  nature  of  her 
errand  which  marked  for  her  the  subsidence  of  these 
first  impressions;  but  for  the  first  time  the  street,  as 

[119] 


ASCENT 

she  turned  out  of  the  entrance,  seemed  to  be  differently 
peopled  and  her  steps  bent  toward  a  definite  arrival. 
She  had  opened  Father  Ames's  note,  that  morning, 
with  the  sense  that  it  contained  the  promise  of  some 
revelation  of  personality  definitely  new  to  her.  It  was 
typed  by  the  young  priest  who  was  with  him  as  his 
secretary.  But  it  bore  his  signature,  and  she  had  at 
once  felt,  in  the  rapidly  formed,  pointed  letters,  as  she 
said  with  a  smile  to  Devon,  the  illusion  which  surrounds 
the  people  whose  authority  is  beyond  question.  Father 
Ames  had  written  that,  after  a  delay  of  two  weeks, 
which  his  constant  engagements  had  necessitated,  he 
would  be  glad  to  see  them  that  afternoon,  and  she  had 
arranged  to  meet  Devon  at  the  house  where  he  had 
some  temporary  rooms. 

The  address  which  had  been  given  her  was  in  one 
of  the  west  streets  beyond  the  park,  and  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  the  Paulist  church.  The  paths  across  the 
park  were  still  slippery  and  deserted;  but  the  hour 
had  so  particular  a  charm  for  her,  with  the  electric 
brilliancy  of  the  signs  on  the  buildings  flashing  into 
the  sunset,  that  she  was  glad  she  had  determined  to 
walk.  Yet  as  she  looked  over  the  vast  stretch  of 
irregular  roofs,  she  felt  the  direction  of  the  tide  of 
her  thoughts  sway  and  change.  Her  critical  sense 
detached  itself,  for  the  first  time,  from  the  effects 
of  the  heady  stimulant  of  the  friction  and  competition 
of  the  existence  she  had  been  living.  She  told  herself, 
suddenly,  that  New  York  had  presented  splendid  facts 
to  her,  but  had  not  extracted  them  from  her.  The 
quality  of  a  human  enrichment  had  after  all  been 
completely  absent.  Her  dissection  was  too  clear  not 
to  admit  that  this  lack  of  any  reflective  element  had 

[120] 


ASCENT 

I 

appealed  to  her.  But  she  knew  too  that  the  luxury 
and  the  opportunity,  the  stir  of  appreciation  about 
her  and  the  first  lift  of  her  wings  after  the  constrictions 
of  Ware,  had  touched  only  the  outer  surfaces  of  her 
mind.  Even  the  brief  sketch  in  her  thoughts  of  what 
the  conditions  of  a  life  like  Father  Ames's  must  be 
had  stirred  her  deeper  curiosities.  The  books  she  had 
read  with  Mr.  Lacy  and  bits  of  his  talk  and  his  tradi 
tion  drifted,  after  weeks  of  disappearance,  through  her 
memory.  As  she  paused  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  park, 
with  her  eyes  travelling  beyond  the  trees,  whose 
branches  had  already  the  first  misty  grey  of  spring, 
to  the  early  lights  in  the  serried  wall  of  the  houses  to 
the  south,  she  felt  that  the  foreground  of  her  interest 
had  been  altered  and  displaced;  that  the  life  she  had 
been  leading  had  had  none  of  the  shadows  which  com 
pel  one  to  realise  substance,  and  the  people  about  her 
none  of  the  impalpabilities  of  educated  personalities, 
but  only  inexactnesses. 

After  she  had  left  the  park,  her  impending  sense  of 
expectation  in  her  errand  was  heightened  by  the  dif 
ference  in  the  streets.  It  took  her  only  a  few  minutes 
to  pass  first  into  a  more  dubious  and  then  into  a  poorer 
quarter.  Even  in  the  lingering  cold,  the  children  from 
the  flat  houses  were  clustered  noisily  about  the  door 
steps  and  screamed  from  the  alley- ways.  The  house 
before  which  she  stopped  was  one  of  the  dingiest,  and 
she  hesitated,  with  a  sense  of  incredulity,  when  the 
janitress  who  watched  her  from  the  basement  told  her 
this  was  her  destination.  Father  Ames  had  sublet 
Father  Croft's  rooms  on  the  top  floor,  she  said,  and 
visitors  had  only  to  push  the  bell  of  the  uppermost  flat 
and  go  up. 

[121] 


ASCENT 

The  door,  which  opened  automatically,  admitted  her 
to  stairs  which  were  almost  completely  dark  and  she 
made  her  way  slowly,  with  her  surprise  increasing  at 
each  step.  Her  instinctive  effort  to  gratify  the  out 
ward  element  in  life  left  her  astonished  by  this  barren 
discomfort.  It  was  the  last  surrounding  in  which  she 
would  have  expected  Ames  to  be,  from  the  constant 
accounts  of  his  activities  in  the  daily  papers.  As  she 
mounted  the  last  flight,  a  woman  pushed  past  her,  or 
her  way  down.  Her  dress  was  ornate  and  shabby  and 
heavy  with  perfume,  and  her  face  reddened  and  sullen. 
She  was  the  most  unlikely  type  of  person  to  consult  a 
priest  of  Father  Ames's  type;  and  some  dim  sense  of 
the  dramatic  element  in  the  contradiction  of  such  cir 
cumstances  drew  Olive's  wonder  after  her,  as  she 
descended,  and  sharpened  the  curiosity  with  which  she 
stopped  on  the  last  landing. 

The  door  of  the  flat  stood  ajar,  and  after  a  momen 
tary  uncertainty  she  pushed  it  open  and  made  her  way 
across  the  narrow  entry  which  immediately  confronted 
her.  As  she  paused  on  the  threshold  of  the  front 
room,  an  exclamation  of  surprise  broke  from  her.  The 
room,  which  was  long  and  low  and  lit  from  the  south, 
lifted  her  instantly  to  a  different  world.  She  imagined 
that  in  itself  it  was  bare  and  plain  enough  to  match  the 
rest  of  the  house;  but  her  single  glance  at  it  was  enough 
to  show  her  what  it  held.  A  long  strip  of  dim  tapestry 
— a  faded  sixteenth  century  Adoration,  with  a  charm 
ing  naivete  of  execution — was  stretched  across  the 
shabby  wall.  The  mantel  was  crowned  by  a  slim  young 
St.  Stephen,  of  the  same  period,  with  pointed  flames 
about  his  raised  head,  and  the  triptych  of  which  his  fig 
ure  formed  the  centre  was  heavy  with  gold.  There  was 

[122] 


ASCENT 

a  carved  Virgin  and  Child,  on  a  French  Renaissance 
pillar,  at  whose  base  a  bowl  of  the  first  jonquils  had 
been  placed ;  and  over  the  littered  desk  hung  an  enamel 
of  some  saint,  with  a  lovely  inlay  of  blue.  The  tables, 
amongst  their  piled  papers,  held  piles  of  books,  with 
every  now  and  then  a  little  ornament.  A  tiny  ivory 
St.  Catherine  trod  with  exaltation  on  the  dragon 
beneath  her,  and  the  brown  of  the  missal  which  lay 
beside  her  was  so  old  that  it  seemed  to  Olive  like  the 
richest  earth  touched  with  sun.  Yet  the  cross  which 
stood  on  the  desk — her  sense  of  contradiction  returned 
as  her  eyes  lit  on  it,  below  the  brilliancy  of  the  enamel, 
— was  of  the  plainest  wood.  Its  presence  laid  a  baffling 
hand  on  her,  as  she  turned,  at  the  sound  of  a  step  in 
the  doorway,  to  face  Father  Ames. 

He  came  forward  immediately,  with  a  cordial  assur 
ance.  Her  instant  impression  of  him  was  that  he  was 
tall  and  thin,  with  markedly  dark  hair  and  eyes,  and 
that  his  smile  ran  over  his  face  like  a  light. 

"I'm  so  sorry,  Mrs.  Devon,  to  receive  you  like  this! 
You  found  the  door  open,  I  hope?  You  see,  we've  no 
servant  here  in  the  afternoon,  and  there's  no  other 
way  to  manage.  I  was  finishing  up  some  instructions 
to  Father  Meryon,  in  his  room,  and  all  afternoon  I've 
been  trying  to  give  the  fathers  at  the  church  a  little 
help  with  their  penitents.  .  .  .  They're  so  endlessly 
kind  to  me!  And  John?  He's  to  join  us?  But 
come  .  .  .  you  must  sit  down!" 

Olive  had  been  conscious  of  the  way  his  rapid  tone 
held  her;  but  as  he  ended  she  felt  all  the  vividness 
of  the  power  which  chained  her  attention.  She  had 
no  analogies  for  it,  in  either  her  experience  or  her 
imagination;  and  she  was  only  aware,  at  the  moment, 

[123] 


ASCENT 

that  in  the  face  of  so  trained  a  force  her  own  capacity 
seemed  suddenly  dissolved  into  the  accidental  and 
fortuitous. 

She  murmured  that  John  had  agreed  to  join  her, 
and  she  followed  him  to  the  little  fire  in  the  grate. 
Father  Ames  paused  for  a  second  at  his  desk,  to  replace 
a  paper  and  to  throw  down  a  sheaf  of  telegrams,  and 
then  drew  a  chair  opposite  hers. 

"Of  course  I've  seen  John — he's  perhaps  told  you? 
If  I  have  time  for  sleep  and  food,  I've  time  for  John; 
I  don't  willingly  do  without  him!  One  night  we  had 
just  a  few  words;  but  I  was  off  to  Pittsburgh  at  mid 
night,  and  we'd  a  chance  only  to  realise  all  we  wanted 
to  say;  and  then,  of  course,  my  great  desire  was  to 
see  you  .  .  ."  his  eyes  played  on  her. 

"It  was  no  more  than  mine  to  see  you,"  she  returned 
his  smile;  "and  to  judge  for  myself  how  such  an 
incredible  thing  as  a  friendship  could  come  to  exist 
between  you." 

Father  Ames  laughed.  "You  must  go,  I  fear,  a  long 
journey;  not  far  back  into  my  capacity — for  mine's 
a  poor  thing — but  to  that  strange  mixture  of  tenderness 
and  determination  which  makes  up  your  husband.  I 
always  tell  him  he's  one  of  the  few  modern  men — of 
course  one  knows  some  mediaeval  ones — who's  got  the 
real  love  of  the  unseen,  of  the  thing  felt  and  not 
defined.  If  he'd  defined  it,  he'd  have  had  a  religion; 
as  it  is—  His  gesture  ended  the  phrase;  she  had 
a  sense  that  even  the  motions  of  his  hands  had  point 
and  intention,  as  if  they  matched  the  incisiveness  of  his 
briefest  phrase,  and  as  if  all  of  him  had  been  composed 
to  penetrate  every  obscurity  and  impress  every  surface. 
"Now  tell  me!  You've  been  married  almost  a  year, 

[124] 


ASCENT 

haven't  you?  And  had  you  known  John  long — was  it 
a  long  attachment?" 

Olive  felt  herself  stiffen  instinctively  against  the 
light  note  of  authority  which  underlay  his  ease. 

"I  had  known  him  always,  ever  since  I  was  the 
littlest  child;  but  as  to  the  length  of  our  attach 
ment  .  .  ." 

He  took  up  her  hesitation  instantly.  "It  is  really 
measured,  then,  by  the  length  of  time  you  knew  him; 
that's  clear  enough !  No  one  could  know  John  without 
feeling  him.  You've  a  great  opportunity  before  you — 
granting  his  nature,  and  with  his  evident  devotion  for 
you;"  his  smile  deepened;  "and  an  opportunity  is  all 
that  a  woman  who  is  young  and  intelligent  can  ask." 

She  felt  again  the  rapid  touch  of  the  impersonality  in 
his  personalities.  It  held  her  for  the  pause  of  a 
moment,  and  then  she  shook  her  head.  "I'm  afraid  I 
should  call  it  a  necessity  and  not  an  opportunity.  I 
see  very  little  of  the  stimulant  of  glory  in  what  is — for 
some  reason  I  can't  define — not  one's  privilege  but 
one's  routine.  I  am  not,  you  see,  a  Catholic;  and  what 
you  call  faith,  I  call  a  capacity  for  illusion.  You  must 
forgive  me;  I  was  brought  up  by  an  atheistic  old  grand 
father." 

Father  Ames  fell  back  in  his  chair,  pressing  together 
the  tips  of  his  fingers,  which,  it  struck  her,  had  the 
length  and  the  pallor  of  the  hands  in  the  portraits  of 
the  old  ecclesiastics. 

"At  least,  then,  you've  faith  in  your  own  lack  of 
illusion.  It's  not — may  I  say  it? — an  uncommon 
disease!" 

"No,"  said  Olive;  her  shoulders  rose  and  fell  lightly. 
"But  I  have  it  uncommonly.  I  was  taught  to  believe 

[125] 


ASCENT 

in  something  wider  than  the  personalities  of  Chris 
tianity." 

"God  is  not  a  person,  God  is  a  force "  he 

smiled  again  as  he  paused.  "But  of  course  the  mys 
teries  of  revelation  would  not  touch  a  person  with  your 
training.  Again  and  again  I  commit  the  error  of 
expecting  the  Holy  Ghost  to  work  faster  than  He  does. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  hurry  you,  Mrs.  Devon;"  he  laughed; 
"living  is  full  of  contradictions,  and  those  contra 
dictions,  as  you  will  find,  are  explained  only  by  the 
inexplicable." 

Olive  let  her  slower  smile  answer  his.  "No  contra 
dictions  of  my  heresy  could  be  stranger  than  the  con 
tradictions  of  your  faith;  than  the  contradiction,  for 
instance" — she  glanced  about  her — "between  this 
room  and  the  woman  I  met  on  the  stairs!" 

"The  woman — ?  Yes,  of  course!  She  was  looking 
for  Father  Croft,  and  since  he  has  been  called  down 
to  the  University  at  Washington,  Father  Meryon  and 
I  see  everyone  who  comes  here  for  him.  He's  one 
of  the  young  priests  over  at  the  Paulists — a  most  holy 
man;  and  anything  I  can  do  to  give  him  a  hand — he, 
who  is  doing  work  of  the  soul  when  my  work  is  far 
too  much  of  the  brain  .  .  ."  His  eyes  narrowed  for 
an  instant  on  her.  "It  puzzles  you,  I  suppose — disci 
pline?" 

"It  scarcely  so  much  puzzles  me  as  it  seems  to  me 
futile.  To  couple  your  little  St.  Catherine  there  with 
the  needs  and  emotions  of  such  a  creature  .  .  ."  she 
broke  off. 

Father  Ames  shot  a  look  around  them.  "My  things 
here  ...  I  see!  They  are  most  of  them  from  our 
chapel  at  home,  you  know,  and  they  go  wherever  I  can 

[126] 


ASCENT 

take  them  with  me;  sometimes  in  the  desert  or  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world,  they've  been  the  only 
sense  of  a  chapel  that  I  had!  But  don't  you  under 
stand,"  his  glance  turned  back  to  her,  "that  it's  only 
because  of  their  connection  with  such  a  woman — or 
with  every  soul — that  they've  any  value  whatever, 
that  they  exist  at  all?" 

Olive  was  suddenly  silent.  Her  rapid  perception  was 
fastening  on  each  detail  of  her  extraordinary  impres 
sion  of  his  direction,  the  conquest  of  human  relations 
which  it  implied  and  the  play  of  experience.  Yet  what 
principally  held  her  was  her  knowledge  that  it  was 
inaccessible  to  her;  that  for  the  first  time  she  had 
touched  a  world  where  her  own  weapons  and  premises 
were  inadequate.  All  the  aggressive  element  in  her 
impact  with  people  rose,  and  hardened  the  corners  of 
her  lips  into  a  set  line.  She  bent  forward  a  little,  with 
her  furs  falling  back,  and  dropped  her  eyes  from 
Father  Ames's. 

"I  quite  see  what  you  mean;"  her  voice  was  as  clear 
but  lower.  "To  exist  at  all  for  you — and  even  for  such 
people  as  she,  if  once  they  believe — beauty  must  be 
linked  with  God.  There's  nothing — is  there? — like 
the  caste  of  belief — no  laws  so  rigid  and  so  exclusive! 
But  don't  forget  that  for  some  of  the  rest  of  us,  these 
things  and  this  room  may  have  their  own  meaning,  and 
that  if  your  Virgin  there  isn't  a  saint  to  us,  at  least 
she's  a  symbol  .  .  .  and  of  something  you  can't  under 
stand!" 

She  felt  instinctively  the  suddenly  closer  mesh  in 
the  chain  of  his  attention.  His  scrutiny  seemed  to  her 
to  have  all  the  training  of  the  confessional  and  of  a 
habit  of  the  balance  of  human  quantities.  He  did  not 

[127] 


ASCENT 

question  her,  as  if  he  had  long  since  recognised  the 
dispersement  of  thought  which  comes  with  the  too 
facile  phrase;  but  his  attention  pressed  her  to  continue. 

"I,  who  have  merely  touched  your  room" — she  made 
a  rapid  gesture — "already  it  has  made  me  feel  freer. 
I've  felt  in  it  the  promise  of  the  things  I've  been  search 
ing  for  this  long  time;  nothing  like  faith,  no!  My 
disbelief  has  its  own  commandments,  and  more  than 
ten  of  them!  But  I've  felt  the  enrichment  of  living, 
the  inner  quality  which  makes  experience  valuable, 
the  seen  and  the  unseen;  all  of  the  things  without  which 
this  existence,  here  about  us,  is  so  intolerable.  .  .  ." 

Father  Ames  considered  her  for  a  moment.  "And 
you're  not  satisfied  with  what  your  life's  giving  you? 
But  you  must  command  everything,  Mrs.  Devon!  And 
New  York's  a  marvellous  place  in  which  to  command 
everything!" 

Olive  frowned.  "Don't  misunderstand  me.  Of 
course  I've  enjoyed  being  here,  of  course  it's  intoxi 
cated  and  thrilled  me.  I  came,  perhaps  you  know, 
from  a  little  village,  where  I'd  had  nothing  but  my 
imagination  to  live  on.  I'm  worthy  of  no  sort  of 
sympathy;  I've  gone  in  for  it  all — for  its  restlessness 
and  its  splendour — as  thoroughly  as  my  mother-in-law; 
and  you  know  my  mother-in-law?  But — I  don't  know 
how  to  put  it  to  you" — she  laid  her  hand  on  her  breast 
—"I've  not  been  content." 

He  seemed  easily  to  disregard  the  personal  comment 
she  had  made  for  the  larger  one. 

"It's  an  amazing  life" — he  hesitated.  "And  most  of 
it  is  sincere.  New  York  is  always  a  lesson  to  me.  Its 
noble  people,  its  fabulous  generosity,  its  fever  of 
pleasure — and  its  lack  of  consistency.  It's  the  image 

[128] 


ASCENT 

of  what  is  in  us  all,  of  our  readiness  to  have  and  to 
deal,  our  acceptance  of  the  outer  aspect,  our  fear  of 
the  quiet  that  is  in  ourselves.  We're  after  all,  each 
one  of  us,  as  inconsistent,  in  our  way!" 

"That's  a  danger  which  can't  confront  you,  Father!" 
Her  retort  had  a  sharpened  edge.  "Even  the  contradic 
tions  in  your  room  can  be  explained,  I  suppose,  if  one 
applies  a  creed  to  them!" 

"Ah,  you're  beginning  to  see,  then,  that  the  applica 
tion,  as  you  call  it,  of  a  creed  explains  everything!" 
Father  Ames's  smile  still  held.  "You're  beginning  to 
admit  the  fact  that  God,  for  His  inscrutable  reasons, 
deals  both  in  the  little  Catherine  there  and  the  woman 
you  passed  on  the  stairs!  No,  no!"  He  drew  his 
hand  across  his  eyes.  "My  consistency  is  nothing — as 
weak  as  all  human  consistency;  but  God's  is  His 
own." 

She  measured  his  silence  silently  for  a  moment. 
"Then  even  yours  has  its  lapses?"  Her  gesture  inter 
rupted  the  sudden  movement  with  which  he  raised 
his  hand  to  interpose.  "No,  don't  deny  or  affirm  it! 
I  see  that  it  has,  and  that  that's  why  it's  a  help  to  one 
to  be  here.  More,  I  see  that's  the  reason  why,  the 
instant  that  I  came  in,  I  had  a  sense  of  escape — and 
of  something  deeper — of  explanation." 

"The  opposite  to  what  one  is  doing  always  seems 
an  escape;  and  I  doubt" — his  lightness  was  glancing 
— "if  you  are  really  searching  for  explanations!" 

"The  explanation  which  your  room  has  been  to  me 
is  purely  personal,  and  I  have  no  right  to  trouble  you 
with  it."  She  had  stiffened  in  her  chair,  with  an  accent  of 
reserve;  then  her  hands  flew  out,  with  a  sudden  move 
ment  of  appeal  and  she  again  bent  forward.  "But  don't 

[129] 


ASCENT 

you  see,  Father,  that  it  brings  one  to  the  human  soul, 
your  room?  Oh,  not  only  to  yours,  but  even  to  mine? 
We've  all  got  our  ugly  shells;  we've  all  got  our  beauties 
— not,  I  admit" — she  looked  up  at  the  Virgin  above  her 
— "as  definite  and  as  exquisite  as  yours;  still  they 
exist!  And  we've  all  got,"  her  finger  pointed  to  the 
cross  on  the  table,  "to  be  stripped  at  the  end.  That's 
why  it  makes  me  feel  dumb;  because  I — I,  whom  you 
wouldn't  know  if  you  passed  me  in  the  street  to-mor 
row, — see  here  something  which  I  haven't  seen  before, 
and  which  I  don't  want  to  admit.  .  .  ." 

She  had  dropped  back,  with  her  hands  fallen  to  her 
lap.  Her  eyes,  in  their  fixity  on  Father  Ames's  face, 
searched  for  his  response.  In  the  last  instants  she  had 
definitely  measured  the  closer  approach  to  her  of  his 
concentration  and  that  with  each  word  she  pro 
nounced  he  had  more  clearly  seen  her  as  she  could 
fancy  she  presented  herself — with  the  low  lamp  beside 
her  casting  a  shadow  rather  than  a  light  on  her  and 
her  outline,  from  her  soft  dark  hat  to  her  feet,  drawn 
in  black  against  the  blues  and  creams  of  the  tapestry 
behind  her.  The  sense  of  feeling  her  way  through 
avenues  more  tortuous  and  reserves  more  initial  than 
any  she  had  ever  imagined  was  vividly  present  to  her. 
All  her  prehensiveness  had  turned  to  the  weapons  she 
could  use  to  drive  home  that  personal  insistence  which 
she  instinctively  regarded  as  the  single  issue  at  stake. 

She  could  have  told  the  precise  instant  when  Father 
Ames's  mood  assured  itself. 

"I  am  glad  if  it  is  of  the  smallest  service  to  you  to 
see  these  things,"  he  said  easily.  "But  do  not  let  your 
evident  talent  for  exaltation  lead  you  into  credences 
which  you  do  not  really  possess." 

[130] 


ASCENT 

"That  I  don't  possess — ?"    Her  voice  faltered. 

"I  mean  what  one  must  always  mean  in  dealing  with 
a  woman  who  has  no  rule  of  belief,  and  consequently 
no  law  of  sacrifice  to  consider.  It's  my  duty,  as  a 
priest,  to  remind  you  that  where  one  of  my  own  chil 
dren  is  trained  in  the  way  she  can  take  help  from  me, 
you  are  not;  and  that  it  would  be  unjust  to  you  to 
offer  you  a  solace  which  you  might  afterwards  regret 
having  asked.  I've  had  confessions  enough  from  non- 
Catholics,  in  my  time,  but  they've  always  seemed  to 
me  tragic  things;  indeed,  what  else  could  they  be,  with 
no  faith  behind  them  and  no  absolution  to  attain — ?" 

"Then,  Father," — her  tone  was  keener — "you  shut 
people  like  me  out?" 

Father  Ames's  hand  lifted.  "Ah,  never,  my  dear 
lady!  You  shut  yourselves  out!  Don't  give  such  a 
cruel  name,  either,"  his  voice  changed  to  a  warmer 
graciousness,  "to  what  I  hope — more  than  ever,  since 
I've  seen  you — will  be  a  real  friendship  between  us." 

She  shook  her  head.  "What  an  absurdity!  As  if, 
with  our  differences,  we  could  ever  have  a  friendship!" 

"Ah,  I  admit,"  Father  Ames  had  the  quickest  depre 
cation,  "that  all  the  space  in  the  world  lies  between  us ! " 

She  gave  him  a  long,  clear  look;  her  smile  was 
touched,  for  a  second,  with  the  lightest  shadow  of  old 
Lacy's;  then,  turning  with  an  evident  effort  to  the 
table  at  her  elbow,  she  took  up  the  only  photograph,  a 
small  framed  snapshot,  which  the  room  contained. 
Her  question  had  a  conscious  accent  of  banality  as  she 
spoke  again. 

"What  a  charming  group — the  black  habits  of  the 
nuns  against  that  old  wall!  And  the  lady  with  them 
and  the  man  beside  her  .  .  .  it's  all  in  the  picture — " 

[131] 


ASCENT 

Father  Ames  followed  her  tone  instantly.  "Yes,  it 
has  charm,  hasn't  it?  That  was  taken  at  Trant,  in 
Wiltshire — you've  heard  of  Trant? — one  day  when  the 
nuns  drove  over  from  Trowbridge,  to  the  chapel,  for 
Benediction.  The  lady  with  them — Lady  Isabel  Bour- 
das — and  her  brother  Terence  are  two  of  my  oldest 
friends.  We  grew  up  together,  and  we  hope  to  grow 
old  together.  You  may  perhaps  have  met  her,  when 
her  father — the  old  Duke — was  Governor  General,  in 
Canada?  No?  She  is  a  devoted  friend  of  my  sister, 
who  is  one  of  the  nuns  in  the  group.  My  sister  is  known 
in  religion  as  Sister  Martha  of  the  Cross  .  .  ." 

His  words  broke  off.  Olive  had  risen,  with  one  of 
her  sudden  motions,  and  drawn  from  her  muff  a  long 
shining  object.  She  took  a  step  forward,  to  the  figure  of 
the  little  Virgin  on  the  pillar  beside  him,  and  with  a 
rapid  gesture  she  flung  about  the  shoulders  of  the 
statue  the  rosary  he  had  sent  her.  As  she  drew  back 
and  turned  to  him,  her  voice  was  more  hurried  and 
insecure  than  he  had  yet  heard  it. 

"I  hope  you  don't  mind.  .  .  .  But  since  I've  seen 
you,  I  can't  keep  it;  no,  I  can't!  It's  full  of  all  I'll 
never  have,  all  I've  been  taught  against,  all  that  con 
demns  a  rootless  creature  like  me.  Thank  you,  Father 
...  it  was  most  good  of  you,  and  it's  so  beautiful; 
but  I'd  rather  not.  .  .  ."  She  turned  again,  this  time 
to  the  door.  "Ah,  and  here's  John.  .  .  ." 


[132] 


X 

OLIVE  found  herself  increasingly  desirous  to  be 
alone,  as  the  next  days  passed;  yet  she  quite 
realised  that  the  close  sequence  of  her  engage 
ments,  with  all  the  variation  of  contact  they  brought 
with  them,  lent  a  more  dramatic  savour  to  the  obscuri 
ties  in  her  mind.  She  had  been  suddenly  furnished 
with  the  contrast  of  inner  comparisons.  To  come  in 
from  seeing  pictures  with  Mrs.  Devon  or  from  the 
crowds  at  a  concert,  to  fling  herself  into  a  chair 
beside  her  fire,  without  ringing  for  lights  or  for  tea, 
and  to  let  the  coals  fall  slowly  to  ashes  in  the  grate 
and  the  room  turn  dark  and  cold,  was  to  return 
as  suddenly  to  her  private  thoughts.  The  stir  of  her 
questioning  came  to  her  daily  more  insistently;  she 
caught  it  across  the  press  of  the  streets  and  through  the 
conversation  about  her;  and  it  enriched  and  warmed 
her  quality  so  palpably  that  she  had  a  touch  of  abstrac 
tion  in  her  brilliancy  and  her  luminance  was  softened 
by  her  evident  sense  of  the  inexplicable. 

The  echoes  which  Father  Ames  had  aroused  in  her 
went  back,  as  she  realised,  beyond  her  own  memory. 
Her  chief  wonder,  as  she  searched  for  some  tracery  in 
these  currents  and  counter-currents,  was  how  she  had 
come  to  be  equipped  with  definitions  so  absolute  in 
their  superficiality.  She  could  imagine  no  phrase  more 
alien  to  her  instinct  than  any  which  dealt  with  an  inner 
world.  It  was  consequent  to  this,  she  supposed,  as  well 
as  to  all  the  suppressions  of  poverty,  that  her  sense  of 
life  had  been  quantitative  and  that  the  adventure  of 

[133] 


ASCENT 

experience  had  been  to  her  an  objective  one.  With 
the  touch  of  new  forces  in  her  thoughts  and  the  sense 
of  a  new  balance  in  her  relations,  such  a  view  seemed 
to  her  extraordinary  in  its  puerility.  She  had  an  intrin 
sic  belief  that  she  ought  to  feel  herself  lifted  and  freed 
by  this  widened  vision;  but  she  instinctively  applied  it 
in  her  personal  ways,  and  this  sudden  extension  of  scale 
seemed  to  her  real  because  it  offered  so  vast  a  field  for 
the  play  of  the  insistencies  of  her  will  and  the  intrica 
cies  of  her  ambition. 

The  discovery  lent  a  deeper  and  deeper  tone  to  her 
reflections.    She  supposed— with  the  sardonic  twist  of 
comment  which  at  times  so  leapt  out  in  her— that  the 
fact  that  she  had  never  been  more  careful  of  her 
beauty  and  her  dress  was  her  first  approach  to  a  ritual, 
in  her  initiation  into  the  subtleties  of  introspection.    All 
her  consciousness  of  her  personality  had  never  been 
keener.     She  even  turned  a  new  eye  back  on  the 
elements  which  had  produced  her,  and  there  was  for  the 
first  time  something  poignant  to  her  in  Rebecca's  death 
and  in  Philip's  failures.    What  she  had  regarded  as  the 
rich  possibilities  of  her  nature  and  the  ultimacy  of  her 
powers  seemed,  under  the  recollection  of  Father  Ames's 
standard,  to  be  poor  and  thin.    Any  personal  insistence, 
she  felt,  would  be  too  fragile  without  such  a  guidance; 
and  she  never  examined  her  thoughts  without  a  sense 
of  his  eyes  on  her  face  and  of  the  blend,  in  his  voice, 
of  authority  with  humility. 

Devon  had  been  surprised  that  she  one  afternoon 
asked  him  to  take  her  that  same  evening  to  a  lecture, 
the  first  which  Ames  was  to  give,  on  Lourdes.  "I'm  not 
astonished  you  should  want  to  hear  him,  because  even 
your  talk  with  him  must  have  been  enough  to  show 

[i34] 


ASCENT 

what  he  is;  but  Lourdes — !  Oh,  I  know  that  in  his 
hands  it  will  have  not  only  all  the  swing  of  its  emotion 
— the  collective  emotion  of  a  crowd — but  that  he'll 
handle  with  the  easiest  touch  the  scientific  end;  all 
it  says  which  science  can't  help  out,  and  all  it  does  to 
help  science  itself  out.  No— somehow  you've  not  yet 
got —  '  he  smiled,  with  his  gravity  softening — "the 
generosity  of  imagination  for  Lourdes!" 

She  surprised  him  further  by  nodding  acquiescently. 
He  had  come  in  to  her  room  to  find  her  stretched  on 
her  sofa;  she  was  looking  beyond  him  to  the  pale  sun 
in  the  window,  and  the  white  of  the  lace  coverlet,  of 
the  lace  wrap  on  her  shoulders  and  of  the  pillow  behind 
her,  gave  her  eyes  a  deeper  darkness. 

"I  know  I've  so  much  to  see  and  to  feel;  yes,  I  know; 
but  it  seems  too  that  it's  from  him  I'll  get  it." 

Devon  laughed,  as  he  drew  out  his  watch.  "I've 
exactly  twenty  minutes  before  I  must  leave  the  house; 
but  I  could  spend  every  one  of  them  in  telling  you  that 
you'll  never  get  anything  from  Ames  until  you're  will 
ing  to  get  it  from  Catholicism;  that  he's  all  that,  and 
it's  all  of  him!" 

She  nodded  again.  He  had  seldom  seen  her  more 
pliant.  "But  I  want  to  go  to-night,  and  I  want  you 
to  take  me.  You  see" — her  finger  traced  the  web  of 
the  lace  across  her  knees — "if  we  saw  him — afterwards 
— for  an  instant,  you  would  arrest  his  attention  and  I 
shouldn't." 

"Your  honesty's  amazing;  but  incredible  as  it  may 
seem  when  one  looks  at  you,"  he  lifted  from  her  fore 
head  a  heavy  wave  of  her  hair,  "it's  true."  His  voice 
changed.  "Nothing  could  make  me  happier  than  to 
have  him  help  you.  Then  to-night — ?" 

[i35] 


ASCENT 

She  nodded  once  more,  with  her  face  suffused  with 
meditation;  and  after  he  had  left  her  she  lay  motion 
less,  comparing  in  her  mind  the  dull,  unretentive 
passage  of  the  days  as  she  lived  them,  with  the  rever 
berations  of  a  life  like  Father  Ames's,  every  action  of 
which  seemed  to  send  its  sound  down  all  the  various 
corridors  of  eventuality. 

It  was  when  she  saw  him  on  the  bare  stage  of  the 
hall  that  night,  however,  that  she  got  her  vividest 
glimpse  of  all  the  intricacies  of  what  she  felt  to  be 
his  peculiar  asceticism.  The  hall  was  filled  to  its 
utmost  extension,  a  visiting  Cardinal  was  present,  and 
an  eminent  Bishop  made  the  introduction;  but  as  he 
stepped  forward,  with  his  preliminary  bow  to  the 
upper  box,  Father  Ames  seemed  to  her  to  kave  stepped 
back  into  the  tapestry  of  which  he  was,  for  a  beat  of 
time,  only  a  detached  figure.  His  hands  were  clasped 
behind  him  and  his  eyes  on  the  ground ;  and  his  words 
fell  with  the  unbroken  rapidity  which  marked  the  flow 
of  his  thoughts.  She  had  never  imagined  such  a  light 
ning  connection  between  brain  and  expression,  made 
with  so  infallible  a  security.  Yet  in  his  fixed  motion- 
lessness,  with  the  beat  on  his  lowered  face  of  the 
lights  and  the  attention  of  the  crowd,  his  chief  con 
veyance  of  himself  seemed  to  her  to  be  in  his  humility. 
He  had  that  voluntary  recognition  of  his  place  in  the 
scale  of  authority  which  only  a  religious  hierarchy 
can  impose.  Her  thoughts  flew  back  to  the  long 
journeys  of  conquest  of  which  this  arrival  must  be  the 
result;  of  the  adventures  of  his  way,  of  his  pitfalls 
and  victories,  and  of  what  had  put  beauty  into  the 
bareness  of  his  thought  and  bareness  into  its  beauty. 
His  history  lay  spread  before  her  like  a  rich  old 

[136] 


ASCENT 

book,  bound  and  shaped  in  a  way  to  draw  all  her 
powers  of  imagination,  yet  in  a  language  whose  charac 
ters  melted,  under  her  eyes,  into  mystery. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  Devon's  arm  as  the  audience 
rose,  and  murmured  that  she  would  rather  hurry  out 
at  once,  without  any  effort  to  greet  Father  Ames. 
When  they  stood  on  the  high  windy  steps,  waiting  for 
their  motor,  he  bent  towards  her.  "You  didn't  want 
to  stay?  Why?" 

Olive  frowned  restlessly.  "Because  I  get  more  out 
of  it  this  way.  What  other  reason  should  there  be?" 

"It's  truer  and  truer,"  said  Devon  absently  .  .  . 
"there's  no  one  like  him.  Believe  it  or  don't  believe 
it;  but  after  hearing  him  to-night,  one  can  never  again 
think  of  Lourdes  as  able  to  be  solved  by  our  present 
human  apparatus.  One  knows  that  there's  something, 
even  if  one  only  calls  it  a  miracle.  .  .  ." 

She  turned  to  look  at  him,  with  the  clearest  aston 
ishment.  "You  have  the  most  fantastic  notions  .  .  .  !" 

The  wide  surprise  in  her  eyes,  which,  he  could  see, 
was  a  surprise  of  all  her  sequences  of  thought,  struck 
Devon  again  on  the  following  day.  He  had  stopped  at 
his  house  in  the  early  afternoon,  on  his  way  to  a 
nearby  engagement,  to  have  coffee  with  Olive,  who  had 
told  him  that  she  would  be  lunching  alone;  there,  at 
the  opposite  end  of  the  sofa  before  his  library  fire, 
he  had  found  a  person  whom  it  took  him  a  moment  or 
two  to  place  as  Abby  Trail.  Seated  with  an  irref 
ragable  stolidity,  with  none  of  the  grace  of  Olive's 
uprightness,  she  had  greeted  him  and  his  surprise  with 
a  superficial  awkwardness  which,  as  he  had  at  once 
divined,  matched  so  poorly  the  certitude  of  her  wide 
smile. 

[137] 


ASCENT 

"Of  course  I  didn't  know  if  I'd  find  you  home," 
she  repeated,  as  if  to  deprecate  her  temerity  in  making 
the  attempt.  "But  I  thought  you'd  want  news  of 
your  father,  Olive;  and  somehow  it  didn't  seem  just 
right,  if  you  did  want  it,  not  to  give  it  to  you." 

As  she  ceased  Devon  had  turned  to  look  at  his 
wife.  He  knew  enough  of  her  now  to  expect  in  her  the 
peculiar  acerbity  which  disagreement — and,  as  he 
thought,  she  was  still  young  enough  to  call  a  lack  of 
acquiescence  disagreement — always  struck  to  life  in 
her,  like  a  friction  which  produces  sparks.  But  he 
had  not  for  long  seen  her  attitude  as  tense  and  her 
smile  as  sharp.  The  warm  little  brown  room,  with 
the  glow  of  the  fire  so  pleasantly  touching  his  books, 
the  rose  of  the  flowers  at  Olive's  elbow  and  the  crystal 
of  the  coffee  service  in  front  of  her,  was  suddenly 
replete  with  the  recollections  Abby  must  have  brought 
in  with  her,  from  the  wet  spring  day;  and  he  imagined, 
with  a  flash  of  amusement,  how  satisfied  Miss  Trail 
must  be  that  she  had  not  ventured  to  come  to  lunch. 

Olive,  whose  hands  were  constantly  busy  with  the 
coffee  tray,  bent  forward  to  hand  him  his  cup.  "Yes, 
you  can  imagine,  John,  how  much  I'm  about  to  ask 
Abby — who's  this  second  dropped  on  me.  You  won't 
change  your  mind,  Abby,  no?  No  coffee?  And  you 
can  imagine.  .  .  ." 

Miss  Trail  interposed.  "I  guess  Mr.  Devon'll 
imagine  just  as  much  all  I'm  not  about  to  ask  you." 
Her  friendly  brown  eyes  appealed  to  him,  with  a  tart 
humour.  "I  used  to  say  I  never  knew  which  was 
harder  on  which — Ware  on  Olive  or  Olive  on  Ware. 
But  after  all,  though,  I  guess  she  was  the  one  that  had 
the  most  to  put  up  with.  She  was  just  alone,  all  by 

[138] 


ASCENT 

herself;  and  Ware  was  made  up  of  all  the  rest  of  us. 
By  the  way,  Olive,  do  you  know  I've  another  nephew? 
Yes,  Carrie's  boy;  he's  just  two  weeks  old.  He's  to 
be  named  for  father,  and  father's  just  as  pleased — 1 
And  Uncle  Philip — he  doesn't  seem  in  such  good 
health  as  he  should  be.  I  stop  in  when  I  can  and  see 
what  Norah's  up  to;  but  somehow  he  seems  changed 
since  you  left,  and  Norah  says  he  doesn't  relish  his 
food  .  .  ." 

"Then  we  must  at  once  run  up  to  see  him,"  said 
Devon  decisively.  "We've  tried  to  get  him  down, 
haven't  we,  Olive? — but  you  can  imagine,  Miss  Trail, 
what  he  is  to  stir!  I  can  manage  a  day  or  so  off  next 
week,  I  think,  and  we  might  arrange  it  for  then." 

Olive's  voice  rose.  "What  an  absurdity,  John!  You 
know  very  well  that  we've  people  coming  to  dine  next 
week,  to  meet  Father  Ames ;  and  what's  more  you  know 
that  kind  of  attitude  won't  hold,  where  father's  con 
cerned.  Abby  understands  him  as  well  as  I  do,  and 
she  knows  too  that  he'd  be  thrown  into  a  fit  of  con 
sternation  if  I  suddenly  turned  up.  Probably  his  only 
peace  in  life  has  been  since  I  left!" 

Miss  Trail's  flush  had  slowly  mounted;  but  after  a 
quick  glance  at  Devon,  her  dry  smile  showed  again. 
"Well,  I  guess  that's  something  you  and  your  father'll 
have  to  settle  between  you.  And  I  don't  know  as  you 
ever  have  settled  things  with  him;  most  times  it's 
seemed  to  me  you  haven't.  But  somehow  it  doesn't 
grow  easier  to  let  people  manage  their  own  business  in 
this  world.  I  know  I  just  go  on,  year  in  and  year  out, 
thinking  how  much  more  I  know  than  anyone  else, 
and  I'm  always  wrong!" 

[i39] 


ASCENT 

"You're  at  least  philanthropic,"  said  Olive;  she  had 
finished  pouring  the  coffee,  and  her  cool  hands  had 
dropped  to  her  lap.  "I  ought  to  have  been  prepared  to 
have  you  set  out  to  benefit  father.  I  recollect  how 
you  set  out  to  benefit  that  woman  who  lives  at  Long 
Hill  Farm.  You  don't  perhaps  remember  that  we 
met  you,  one  afternoon,  as  you  were  leaving  there. . . ." 

If  Miss  Trail  had  not  rapidity,  she  had  at  least, 
Devon  thought,  an  admirable  sureness.  After  her 
momentary  hesitation,  she  shook  her  head  easily. 
"Goodness,  no!  I've  not  forgotten;  and  I  guess  Lizzie 
hasn't,  either.  She  saw  you  pass,  on  your  way  up; 
and  somehow  it  must  have  seemed  to  her  just  one  of 
those  things  that — well,  that  remind  you  of  the  dif 
ferences  in  life."  Her  slow  glance  turned  toward 
Devon,  as  if  she  were  no  less  instinctively  aware  of 
his  unexpressed  comprehension  than  of  the  thrust  of 
Olive's  antagonism.  "I  don't  think  I  was  ever  sorrier 
for  Lizzie  than  that  day." 

"Long  Hill  Farm  as  a  refuge  for  despised  sinners 
—the  very  end  of  the  earth!  It's  a  perfect  setting! 
I  call  your  putting  her  there  a  stroke  of  drama.  And 
I  suppose  you've  never  failed  to  tell  her,  like  the  good 
Presbyterian — or  is  it  Baptist? — that  you  are,  that  she 
deserved  nothing  better!" 

"No!" — Abby  shook  her  head  good-humouredly — 
"I  don't  tell  her  that."  Her  eyes  rejoined  Olive's  look, 
steadily.  "Sometimes  when  I  see  her  up  there,  just  all 
alone  in  that  lonesome  house,  with  nothing  but  sky 
and  fields  and  sky,  it  seems  no  use  to  remember  any 
thing  more  than  that  once  she  was  just  a  good-hearted, 
silly  girl,  too  fond  of  a  good  time.  .  .  ." 

"And  what  did  she  do,"  Olive's  sharpness  rose,  "to 
[140] 


ASCENT 

make  her  good  times  excessive?    Tell  us — it  would  be 
an  interesting  contribution." 

Miss  Trail's  lips  set.  "I  guess  Lizzie's  good  times 
and  bad  times  belong  just  to  her.  If  you  or  I  were 
living  up  in  that  dreary  place,  like  a  dog  the  children 
have  hooted  out  of  town,  it  wouldn't  somehow  seem 
just  fair" — her  smile  returned,  as  she  glanced  about 
her — "to  have  people  turn  things  over  and  pick  them 
to  pieces  in  a  place  like  this."  She  turned  to  Devon. 
"I  did  want  so  much  to  go  to  see  a  good  piece  at  the 
theatre,  while  I  was  down.  We  get  all  the  new  lists 
through  our  Culture  Club.  But  last  night  father  and 
I  tried,  and  I  thought  it  was  just  the  poorest  kind  of 
thing- 
Devon  was  just  turning  to  answer  her,  with  a  sense 
of  relief  that  they  had  reached  a  point  safe  from 
Olive's  unexpectedness,  when  the  door  opened  and,  as 
if  to  complete  the  element  of  contrast,  Mrs.  Devon 
came  in.  She  was  preceded  by  the  stir  which  she 
always  generated,  and  she  joined  them  at  the  fire-side 
with  the  effect,  as  he  thought,  of  a  mob  without  direc 
tion  or  intention  in  its  approach.  She  looked  from 
Abby  to  Olive,  with  the  helplessness  of  a  bird,  and  the 
light  of  her  pale  eyes  and  the  light  of  the  diamond 
which  hung  at  her  throat  gave  him  the  sense  of  an 
equally  conscious  arrangement  in  their  glitter. 

She  had  come,  she  said,  to  see  what  Olive  had 
finally  decided  about  the  ermine  cape;  and  her  talk 
ran  on,  like  an  indefinitely  extensive  glacier  on  whose 
surface  one  could  never  get  an  instant's  foohold, 
from  her  sympathy  for  colour  and  the  tint  of  the  hat 
she  had  last  worn  when  she  lunched  on  the  Imperial 

[141] 


ASCENT 

yacht  at  Kiel,  to  her  reminiscence  of  a  woman  who, 
on  that  occassion,  hadn't  known  enough  to  take  off  her 
veil.  "Oh,  and  by  the  way,  John,  I've  just  had  a  letter 
from  Rene  Malary  de  la  Rivaudiere's  mother,  telling  me 
about  a  new  Revue.  He  told  her  to  see  if  you  had 
heard  of  it — that  as  an  Ami  du  Louvre  you'd  want 
to  watch  the  illustrations.  Illustrations — they're  won 
derful  nowadays,  aren't  they?  There  was  an  extraor 
dinary  man  at  the  Grafton  Gallery  last  spring — Scotch, 
and  so  clever.  He  did  such  a  sweet  eau-forte  of  the 
Petrucci  child,  when  they  came  up  from  Rome  to 
have  the  eldest  of  the  little  princesses  presented  .  .  . 
How  girls  are  to  be  taught  manners  nowadays,  without 
trains!  Such  a  foolish  economy  of  the  Queen's! 
And  I  almost  forgot  to  tell  you  that,  speaking  of 
economy,  that  Bank  president  whose  name  I  can  never 
recollect  is  coming  in  to  lunch  to-morrow.  At  one — 
will  you  make  time,  John?  He  wants  to  see  those 
Persian  tiles  your  father  left  in  the  library — you  re 
member  he  said  I  could  have  them  because  they  got  on 
his  nerves?  So  absurd!  And  so  absurd  for  a  banker 
to  like  Persian  tiles!  Then,  Olive,  you  do  think  that 
snowy  white  would  be  amusing  against  your  hair,  at 

night ?" 

It  was  astonishing  to  Devon  that,  in  spite  of  his 
mother's  furtive  glances  in  her  direction  and  her  uncer 
tainty  as  to  whether  she  ought  to  place  her  as  an 
anachronism  or  a  type  of  cleverness,  Abby  should  be 
the  one  who  sustained  the  only  ease  possible,  in  the 
few  moments  more  that  she  remained.  She  even 
smiled  at  Mrs.  Devon  a  comprehension  of  her  incom 
prehensible  chatter,  with  what  seemed  to  him  a  touch 
of  gallantry.  As  he  went  down  to  the  door  with  her, 

[142] 


ASCENT 

he  was  surprised  at  the  warmth  with  which  he  found 
himself  thanking  her  for  her  visit. 

"Well,  I  rather  thought  she  ought  to  know."  She 
jerked  her  head  toward  the  upper  room.  "You  see, 
her  father's  not  as  well  as  he  ought  to  be.  Oh,  I  guess 
he'll  just  run  along  forever  this  way;  but  Norah  says 
he  neglects  himself,  and  that  he  doesn't  take  any 
interest  in  anything.  He  needs  company;  that's  it. 
Somehow  as  people  get  older  they  seem  to  get  more 
and  more  lonesome.  .  .  ." 

"It  was  extremely  good  of  you  to  spare  time  to  tell 
us,  and  I'll  talk  it  over  with  Olive."  His  eyes  met  hers 
fully.  "She'll  be  only  too  happy,  as  I'm  sure  you  know, 
to  do  what's  right  for  him." 

Abby  smiled  back  at  him.  "Why,  of  course  I  know. 
Just  think  how  good  she  was  to  old  Mr.  Lacy;  and  I 
don't  believe  I'd  have  had  the  patience  she  had,  living  as 
she  did  and  wanting  things  so  different  from  most  of  us. 
Good-bye,  Mr.  Devon,  and  don't  worry.  I'll  look  in 
on  Uncle  Philip  as  often  as  may  be,  and  I'll  send  you 
a  word  if  there's  anything  really  out  of  the  way.  .  .  ." 

He  had  found  his  mother  on  the  stairs  as  he  turned 
to  go  up.  Her  small  arresting  presence,  clinging  to 
his  elbow,  claimed  for  a  moment  as  much  of  his  atten 
tion  as  he  was  ever  able  to  concentrate  on  her.  She 
had  murmured,  vaguely,  that  Miss  Trail  must  be 
exceedingly  interesting;  but  when  she  had  ventured 
this  opinion  to  Olive,  it  was  evident  that  Olive  had 
made  some  such  reply  as  that  Mrs.  Devon  thought  so 
only  because  she  had  no  premises  in  her  experience 
by  which  to  explain  Abby.  "Really,  you  know,  John, 
at  times  Olive  does  rather  leave  one  gaping.  But,  my 
dear  boy,  the  way  she  carries  herself  .  .  .  it's  too 

[i43l 


ASCENT 

marvellous!  Did  you  know  that  your  father  has 
bought  a  yacht?  Yes,  really!  It  appears  he  told 
someone  he  couldn't  breathe  at  that  awful  place  in 
July  and  that — except  there — the  sea  was  the  only 
place  he'd  be  safe  from  intrusion.  So  like  him,  isn't 
it?  You  look  tired,  my  dear;  you  need  a  tonic — 

The  only  way  to  terminate  their  talk  was  to  turn 
her  over  to  her  footman,  on  the  step,  and  Devon  had 
drawn  a  breath  of  relief  as  he  closed  the  door.  He 
saw,  by  a  glance  at  the  clock,  that  he  was  already  late 
for  his  appointment;  yet  some  sense  of  disquietude 
made  him  turn  up  the  stairs  again. 

Olive  was  sitting  in  the  same  position  she  had  held 
when  he  left  the  room,  her  back  against  the  corner  of 
the  sofa,  her  hands  pressed  together  and  her  eyes  set 
on  the  window  opposite;  but  the  face  she  turned  on 
him  was  like  a  sudden  flame  of  resentment. 

"Well,  are  you  satisfied?"  she  broke  out.  "You 
who  think  I  ought  to  learn,  to  soften — aren't  those  the 
safe  sentimentalities  you  believe  in?  Are  you  at  last 
convinced  I  can't  be  a  charitable  Christian  like  Abby? 
Oh,  but  she  brought  it  all  back  to  me — their  smugness, 
their  security!  There's  no  use  telling  me  what  they 
are — I  know  what  they  are!  I  detest  that  weak  kind 
ness,  that  softness  of  judgment.  I'd  a  thousand  times 
rather  be  condemned  by  them  than  admire  them !" 

Devon  caught  both  her  hands.  "Very  well.  But  you 
can't  escape  admitting  they're  real,  Abby  and  Ware 
too — as  real  as  you,  and  with  things  you  haven't  got." 

"I  suppose  you'd  like  me,"  she  flung  at  him,  "to  go 
to  Long  Hill  Farm  and  sympathise  with  Lizzie  Trus- 
low!" 

"I'd  like  you  to  be  capable  of  it!"    His  pressure  on 


ASCENT 

her  hands  held,  with  his  habitual  gesture,  as  if  he 
unconsciously  betrayed  in  this  physical  effort  his 
attempt  to  lay  a  hold  on  her  force.  "Do  you  see 
nothing  in  kindness  except  that  it's  a  concession?  Do 
you  see  nothing  in  feeling  except  that  it's  vulnerable? 
Are  you  incapable  of  it?  In  a  way,  my  dear,  you're 
afraid  of  those  people — afraid  because,  though  you 
can't  understand  it,  they're  superior  to  you.  Ames 
would  be  the  first  to  tell  you  so." 

He  had  then  caught  from  her  a  repetition  of  her 
astonished  look.  Her  anger  died  down,  and  she  met 
his  eyes  with  an  incredulous  surprise.  It  seemed  to 
him  to  be  compounded  of  all  the  things  which  con 
fused  her;  and  he  had  never  more  clearly  felt  her  lack 
of  any  knowledge  of  human  exchange,  her  instinctive 
combat  of  a  benefit  or  a  generosity,  and  the  corrosive 
power  of  her  mind. 


[145] 


XI 

SHE  had  not  seen  Father  Ames  until  the  following 
week,  when  he  fulfilled  his  promise  to  dine  with 
them;  and  the  first  words  he  had  spoken  as  he 
took  his  seat  beside  her,  after  dinner,  had  made  her 
realise  how  instantly  he  could  turn  and  direct  the 
angle  of  her  thoughts. 

He  had  drawn  forward  the  chair  she  had  motioned 
him  to,  with  his  suggestion  of  a  fundamental  fatigue 
beneath  his  nervous  force,  and  his  eyes  had  touched  her 
face  keenly. 

"Ah,  this  is  good  of  you,  Mrs.  Devon!  I  wanted 
a  word  with  you;  but  then  you've  talked  to  me,  in 
your  silences,  all  evening !" 

His  greeting  to  her,  on  his  arrival,  had  seemed  to 
Olive  to  set  the  tone  of  their  communication.  He  could 
not  have  been  more  evidently  gracious,  more  affec 
tionate  in  the  way  his  hand  lingered  on  Devon's  arm 
or  more  perfect  in  the  response  of  his  courtesy  to 
the  few  older  people  whom  she  had  asked  to  meet  him; 
but  an  amused  look  from  Devon  had  reminded  her  of 
his  private  assurance  of  Ames's  detestation  of  a  dinner 
and  of  how  rare  it  was  for  him  to  accept  one.  The 
light  note  of  authority  in  him,  so  carefully  separate 
from  his  personal  humility,  was  necessarily  predomi 
nant  in  the  face  of  the  questions  put  to  him  by  an 
international  lawyer,  who  had  read  him  exhaustively, 
by  a  Harvard  professor  of  Metaphysics,  who  wanted 
some  points  on  a  recent  Stonyhurst  course,  and  by  a 

[146] 


ASCENT 

railroad  president,  a  devout  Catholic,  whose  desire  it 
was  to  found  a  chair  of  Scholastic  Philosophy  at  a 
western  university.  During  dinner  he  had  rarely 
turned,  from  his  seat  beside  Olive,  to  look  at  her;  and 
if  he  did  so  his  glance  passed  over  her  with  the  same 
rapid  preoccupation  with  which  it  passed  over  the  other 
faces,  as  if  he  noted  between  a  thinker  and  a  supersti 
tious  financier,  between  her  mother-in-law  and  herself, 
only  such  differences  as  were  differences  of  soul  and  the 
vast  likenesses  of  humanity  at  large. 

She  had  not  needed  Mrs.  Devon's  emphatic  nod  of 
admiration  to  assure  her  that  she  had  shown  through 
out  the  evening  that  skill  which,  as  she  had  instinctively 
known,  was  rarer  than  too  marked  a  competence  or 
too  easily  effusive  a  cordiality.  She  could  fancy  that 
her  mother-in-law  was  once  more  exclaiming  to  her 
self  that  that  was  the  marvel — the  things  she  instinc 
tively  knew;  that  the  guests  were  so  carefully  chosen  and 
so  few,  the  table  and  the  food  of  so  simple  an  arrange 
ment;  that  she  had  displaced  the  other  ladies  present 
and  put  Mrs.  Devon  at  Devon's  right,  and  that  she 
had  asked  a  Catholic  present  to  ask  Father  Ames  to 
say  grace,  rather  than  to  make  the  request  herself.  It 
was  in  the  habit  of  her  judgments  to  regard  such  occa 
sions  in  the  light  of  their  tribute  to  her  personal 
success;  and  she  was  conscious  that  her  touch  of 
management  was  so  perfectly  sure  and  firm  that  it 
was  natural.  The  finer  demands  on  her  capacity  and 
her  intelligence  which  the  evening  had  made  had  con 
vinced  her  more  than  ever  of  all  she  had  avoided — that 
her  adaptability  had  not  been  too  easy  and  too  fluid, 
that  her  judgment  held,  even  in  the  dazzle  of  all  she 
couldn't  possibly  know,  and  that  she  was  learning  the 

[i47] 


ASCENT 

literature  of  the  best,  in  all  the  habits  of  her  taste,  and 
not,  like  Mrs.  Devon,  its  dangerous  jargon.  But  where, 
she  had  asked  herself,  could  she  stand  in  Father  Ames's 
point  of  view?  He  had  once  again  the  effect  for  her  of 
creating  a  standard,  of  relegating  the  temporary  to 
unimportance  and  extracting  from  the  permanent  its 
intrinsic  values.  The  talk  about  the  table,  the  sub 
jects  it  touched,  the  streets  outside  and  that  sense  of 
the  city  which  was  still  so  present  to  her,  took  their 
place  in  their  relation  to  civilisation  and  history,  as 
she  listened  to  him;  just  as  his  smile  at  Mrs.  Devon's 
absurdities  did  not  change  the  fact,  as  he  watched  her, 
that  he  seemed  amusedly  conscious  of  her  fractional 
relation  to  eternity. 

He  pursued,  when  he  joined  Olive  after  dinner,  with 
a  quick  sign  of  recognition  towards  the  few  people  scat 
tered  in  the  room.  "I  noticed  your  reticences  because 
one  doesn't  often  have  them  to  notice  here.  What  a 
great  chance  your  countrymen  have  got — if  only  you 
don't  waste  your  greatness  in  size!  I've  seen  so  much 
of  you  all  in  the  past  weeks,  as  I've  travelled  from  place 
to  place — and  that's  all  wrong,  you  know:  I  should 
have  been  able  to  see  so  little!  Life  here  must  move, 
people  must  communicate — even  at  the  cost  of  the 
experience;"  he  smiled;  "and  so  I  noticed  what  you 
didn't  say." 

"Reticences  must  be  very  full,  Father,  to  reach  the 
places  in  which  you  live!"  Olive's  voice  had  the  tinge 
of  antagonism  which,  with  his  tone,  came  to  her  instinc 
tively. 

"Oh,  very!"  Father  Ames  was  completely  acquies 
cent.  "I  should  be  an  even  poorer  servant  than  I  am 
if  that  weren't  so.  You  see  we  Catholics  have  what  one 

[148] 


ASCENT 

might  call  the  trained  conscience;  and  a  priest  in  par 
ticular  has  to  learn  to  discern  what  it's  his  duty  and 
obligation  to  hear  from  what's  only  a  manifestation  of 
life — which  he  judges,  but  in  which  he  has  no  part." 
He  turned  in  his  chair  towards  her.  "It  must  be 
strange, — may  I  say  it?  I  thought  of  it  the  day  when 
you  and  John  were  good  enough  to  come  to  my  rooms 
— it  must  be  strange  to  be  like  you,  and  to  have  all 
one's  idea  of  reality  in  information!" 

Olive  was  silent  for  an  instant.  She  had  again  the 
vital  sense  that  their  words,  as  they  exchanged  them, 
were  like  a  series  of  events.  Each  one  of  his  phrases, 
in  its  affective  sequences,  seemed  to  her  to  bring  her  to 
a  decision  or  force  her  to  a  recognition  more  stirring 
than  any  accident  or  encounter  of  tangibility.  What 
confounded  her  most  in  Ames  was  that  she  felt  her 
habitual  weapons  to  be  useless.  She  was  always 
fundamentally  prepared  for  opposition,  in  her  unfail 
ing  tendency  to  regard  whoever  resisted  her  insistence 
as  an  adversary;  but  she  felt  lost  before  the  complete 
ness  of  his  refusal  to  treat  her  on  any  terms  which 
were  not  his  own. 

She  shifted  her  eyes  to  the  group  across  the  room, 
from  the  accentuated  colours  of  the  dresses  which 
surrounded  Mrs.  Devon  to  the  dark  coats  of  the  men. 

"I  suppose,  Father,  that  you  think  I  know  nothing!" 
her  brows  drew  impatiently  together. 

Father  Ames  laughed.  "I  should  never  be  as  pre 
sumptuous  as  that!  But  I  do  think,  if  you  want  me 
to  answer  you,  that  you  know  nothing" — he  chose  his 
words — "of  the  great  tonic  of  idea.  No — I  really 
may  be  frank?  You're  so  clever  and  rare  a  person, 
as  I've  told  John,  that  one's  struck  by  the  absence 


ASCENT 

of  certain  things  in  you.  You've  got  a  marvellous 
will,  but — remember,  I've  your  permission! — you've 
no  selective  sense.  Your  ignorance  hasn't  yet  become 
refusal.  He  had  another  deprecatory  touch  of 
amusement.  "I've  the  hideous  habit  of  the  platform, 
you  see;  and  you're  giving  me  such  a  charming  eve 
ning  that  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  myself!  John  tells 
me  he's  been  reading  the  last  Bryce.  Have  you,  too, 
looked  through  it?  A  tired  book,  don't  you  think ?" 

She  interrupted  him  with  a  sudden  gesture  of  intol 
erance.  "Why  don't  you  tell  me  at  once,"  she  brought 
out  sharply,  "that  you  think  I'm  all  wrong?  I'd  much 
rather  you  said  it  directly." 

Father  Ames  waited  for  the  shortest  second,  as  if  he 
selected  the  key  in  which  to  pitch  his  reply.  "Ah,  I've 
more  hope!  For  you  to  fancy  I  am  accusing  you  of 
being,  as  you  say,  all  wrong,  is  much  more  spiritually 
advanced  than  for  you  to  fear  my  accusing  you  of 
ignorance!  My  dear  Mrs.  Devon,  who  am  I  to  tell 
you  how  far  you  are,  from  one  or  the  other?"  His 
smile  had  an  instant  kindness.  "I've  no  possible  privi 
lege  to  condemn  you." 

"But  you  do — your  premises  do;  and  they,  to 
you  .  .  ." 

"Are  everything,  of  course.  But  so  are  yours  to 
you,  I  don't  doubt.  We've  talked  for  possibly — all 
told — an  hour;  and  if,  in  that  short  time,  I  haven't  seen 
any  scheme  in  your  life,  or — once  more,  you'll  allow 
me? — in  your  thought,  at  least  I  very  clearly  realise 
that  you're  actuated  by  premises  quite  different  from 
mine,  and  in  which  you  probably  profoundly  believe." 

"How  absurd  to  suppose,"  her  voice  was  sharper, 
"that  I  believe  in  anything!  Don't  you  see,  you  who 

[150] 


ASCENT 

see  so  much,"  she  made  a  rapid  gesture,  "that  that's 
my  difficulty?  Oh,  no,  not  the  usual  scepticism  of 
youth — you're  too  wise  not  to  know  that;  but  a  dis 
belief  in  disbelief  itself." 

"And  why?" 

She  felt  definitely  more  than  the  question  in  his 
words,  as  if  he  had  for  the  first  time  asked  her  for 
a  personal  disclosure. 

"Because  I'm  made  that  way;  action  and  reaction 
—they're  equal  and  opposite  in  more  than  one  science, 
aren't  they?  And  more,  because  I'm  trained  that  way. 
My  old  grandfather  taught  me  a  ritual  as  exact  as 
yours,  Father  1  Oh,  what  can  you,  with  all  your 
inheritances,  know  of  what  it  is  to  be  trained  to  ques 
tion  every  conclusion,  to  undermine  every  supposition, 
to  prick  the  bubble  of  every  impression  by  a  phrase, 
to  interrogate  every  act  for  its  absurdity  or  its 
insincerity  .  .  ."  Her  hands  clasped  each  other 
against  the  dark  velvet  of  her  dress.  "No — it's  useless 
to  try  to  tell  you!" 

Father  Ames's  rapid  smile  again  just  showed. 
"Then  why,  if  you're  so  completely  trained,  aren't  you 
satisfied?" 

The  tensity  of  Olive's  concentration  dissolved.  Her 
eyes  widened  and  her  hands  separated.  "I  don't 
know!"  There  was  an  impotence  in  her  tone  which 
she  made  no  effort  to  attenuate. 

He  was  thoughtful  for  a  moment,  with  his  glance  set 
once  more  across  the  room  and  his  face  resting  against 
his  hand.  "Does  John  know  that  you  feel  this — ? 
that  you're  dissatisfied  with  your  inner  life?" 

"John!"  Her  voice  vibrated  with  difference  and 
then  lowered  again.  "Oh,  yes.  I've  told  him;  more 

[151] 


ASCENT 

than  that,  he  knows.  He  knows  that  I'm  the  last  per 
son  on  earth  to  be  happy  living  an  existence  which  I 
can't  understand — where  I've  no  premises." 

"But  you  see  it's  not  a  question  of  your  happiness! 
It's  a  matter  far  deeper.  Tell  me — you  are  a  Prot 
estant,  aren't  you?" 

She  again  hesitated  for  a  second.  It  had  never 
occurred  to  her  to  define  a  bond  the  ludicrous  aspect 
of  which  old  Lacy  had  never  subordinated  to  its 
other  significance;  and  Ames's  words  called  up  in  her 
mind  an  incongruous  train  of  memories  of  the  Ware 
church,  of  Abby's  efforts  with  the  choir,  of  the  hardness 
of  the  bare  benches,  the  clang  of  the  bell  before  Sunday 
service,  and  of  Mr.  Basker. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  I  could  call  myself  a  Protestant, 
in  the  same  contradictory  way  that  I'm  everything 
else.  Here,  of  course" — her  hands  rose  to  touch  her 
breast — "I'm  nothing." 

Father  Ames  had  again  one  of  his  prolonged  pauses. 
The  light  of  the  intelligence  in  his  face  seemed  to  her 
even  finer  as  he  finally  spoke.  "But  you  want  to  be 
nothing!" 

"No,  no,  no!"  she  caught  him  up.  "I  don't!  I 
don't  want  to  accept  my  moment  of  consciousness  here 
quantitatively  and  crudely.  I  want  everything — but 
I  want  the  best!  How  is  living  to  be  worth  while  to 
me  if  I  haven't  comprehension  and  apprehension? 
How  else  am  I  get  it  all?" 

"There's  rather  a  difference,  you  know," — his  voice 
still  kept  the  accent  of  what  he  said  in  the  range  of 
conversational  comment — "between  one's  mind  and 
one's  soul.  You  must  let  me  say  that  you  seem  to 
confuse  your  interests  and  your  salvation!"  His 

[152] 


ASCENT 

words  paused  again.  "You  want  to  get  a  morality  into 
your  life — that  I  understand;  and  you're  willing  to 
work  to  get  it.  But  once  more,  you'll  forgive  me  if 
I  say  that  to  let  a  thing  go  isn't  to  renounce  it. 
Renouncement  is  never  a  passive  ignorance;  and 
renouncement  is  never  enough  .  .  ." 

"Then  what  you  require  is  nothing  less  than  every 
thing?" 

He  shook  his  head.    "What  God  requires." 

"And  there's  no  other  way?" 

"There's  no  other  way  but  the  way  we  have  indicated 
to  us.  As  one  of  the  Catholic  writers  has  said,  that 
soul  which  is  outside  the  church  remains  until  death  in 
the  outer  dark." 

She  fixed  him  as  his  words  ended,  with  her  eyes 
deepening  under  the  pressure  of  her  determination. 
"And  have  you  any  conception  of  what  it  means — to  be 
a  creature  utterly  alone?" 

"I've  seen,  my  dear  Mrs.  Devon,  many  creatures 
utterly  alone;  but  don't  forget  that  the  facts  which 
make  you  lonely  are  greater  than  you." 

She  waited  for  another  instant  and  then  broke  out, 
with  a  sharp  accent  in  her  sudden  irrelevance.  "Why  is 
it  that  you  make  me  feel  differently  than  anyone  has 
ever  made  me  feel?  Oh,  I've  always  resisted,  Father — ! 
and  I'll  resist  you !  I'm  born  to  resistance.  But  remem 
ber  how  stripped  I  am — that  in  all  your  experience 
you've  never  seen  anyone  more  completely  a  beggar." 

Her  voice  had  changed  to  a  lower  note  of  confidence, 
and  from  confidence  to  appeal,  as  if  his  presence 
brought  out  in  her  an  intuitive  imitation  of  the  pitch  of 
tone  to  which  he  would  be  most  accustomed.  His  eyes, 
as  they  continued  to  meet  hers,  seemed  to  be  measuring 

[153] 


ASCENT 

this,  as  if  his  thoughts  were  running  rapidly  over  his 
knowledge  of  the  instant  self-exposure  of  the  American 
woman  and  the  immediacy  of  her  surrender. 

"Ah,  I  fear—  "  his  answer  was  slow  enough  to  give 
her  time  to  gather  herself — "that  you  don't  see  how 
little  we  all  make  of  personality!  We  want  humanity 
in  human  beings — yes!  You  remember,  perhaps,  the 
story  of  the  old  Jesuit  Superior  who  dismissed  one  of 
his  novices  because  he  had  no  passions?  But  there, 
after  all,  it  is;  one's  got  to  lose  one's  soul  to  find 
it.  .  .  ." 

Olive  held  her  pause  for  so  long  that  the  laughter 
mingled  with  Mrs.  Devon's  sharp  notes,  across  the 
room,  drifted  to  them.  Her  shoulders  straightened  and 
set  at  their  habitual  angle  before  she  replied. 

"Well,  I  must  go  my  own  way,  then." 

Father  Ames's  eyes  left  hers  as  he  spoke.  "If  you 
are  set  on  it,  then  you  must!" 

Her  look  was  still  on  his  face.  "Are  you  off  again 
at  once?" 

"No;  I  shall  be  here  now,  for  six  weeks  or  so.  I've 
my  lectures  in  and  near  New  York;  and  I  believe 
they've  some  new  plan  for  me  .  .  ." 

"Then  you  will  be  lecturing  here?" 

"Yes, — there  will  be,  I  think,  an  announcement  in 
the  morning  papers.  I  can't  say  it's  to  my  taste — but 
since  it  seems  to  be  the  will  of  God  .  .  ."  his  shoulders 
rose  and  fell. 

"You  detest  it?"  she  asked  quickly. 

"Oh,  unutterably ! "  He  laughed.  "I  should  have  liked 
a  quiet  parish  and  a  library.  But  I  had  enough  of 
books,  it  appears,  in  my  first  youth;  and  now  I'm 
condemned,  I  suppose  forever,  to  talk  about  the 

[i54] 


ASCENT 

thoughts  and  doings  of  people  whom  I  haven't  the 
leisure  properly  to  study.  Some  day  perhaps 

"Some  day  you'll  change  it?" 

"Some  day  my  superiors  may  change  it.  And  now 
you  must  forgive  me  ...  I  say  the  first  mass  to-mor 
row;"  he  rose  and  held  out  his  hand;  "and  take  my 
advice !  Take  to  God  those  vague  heresies  which  you  so 
accurately  express  1 " 


[155] 


XII 

THE  early  June  afternoon  had  in  its  air  an 
oppressive  stillness,  above  the  clatter  of  the 
streets.  Olive  had  closed  the  door  and  leaned 
against  it,  catching  her  breath  in  her  satisfaction  at 
finding  the  room  empty.  A  week  or  so  before  Father 
Ames  had  mentioned,  to  her  and  Devon,  that  the  lock 
was  always  on  the  latch,  so  that  when  young  Father 
Croft  was  called  over  to  the  church,  he  and  his  secre 
tary  could  get  in  and  out  without  delay.  She  had 
met  no  one  on  the  stairs;  there  was  no  sound  from 
the  inner  room;  and  the  dust-flecked  light  which 
flooded  the  open  windows  laid  on  everything  the 
enchantment  of  a  separation  from  the  outer  world. 

Her  thought  had  so  enmeshed  itself  about  the 
room,  in  the  two  months  since  she  had  first  entered 
it,  that  she  had  the  odd  sense,  as  she  glanced  about 
her,  of  knowing  it  better  than  it  existed.  The  flowers 
which  were  placed  at  the  foot  of  the  little  column  had 
no  freshness  fresher  than  her  impression  of  them  and 
the  Virgin's  slimness  above  them  was  no  frailer  than 
it  had  lived  in  her  recollection.  There  still  hung  from 
the  shoulders  of  the  statue,  with  its  fine  links  dropping 
motionlessly  to  the  cross,  the  rosary  she  had  flung  over 
them.  As  her  eyes  caught  it  she  felt  the  touch  of  a 
sudden  feeling  pass  through  her.  The  testimony  that, 
through  her  own  conflicts  and  contradictions  of  the 
past  weeks,  this  contributive  sign  from  her  had 
remained,  arrested  her  not  with  a  sense  of  her  impor 
tance  but  of  its  own.  In  the  face  of  what  it  represented, 

[156] 


ASCENT 

her  struggles  and  her  aspirations  were  suddenly 
reduced  to  an  equal  evanescence,  like  spray  tossed 
against  such  solid  perpetuity. 

It  was  the  single  occasion,  she  reflected,  that,  in  the 
constantly  restless  movement  of  her  mind,  any  place 
had  held  her.  She  had  recognised  surroundings  either 
to  subordinate  them  to  herself  or  to  disregard  them, 
as  a  setting  of  whose  impermanence  she  was  com 
pletely  conscious.  But  the  room,  since  first  she  entered 
it,  had  stood  for  the  symbol  of  her  stirred  sense  of 
form  and  meaning,  consequence  and  derivation.  Be 
tween  its  asceticism  and  its  richness  there  was  a  moral 
balance  which  had  given  a  sudden  relevance  to  the 
loose  manifestations  of  her  hunger.  It  was  here,  she 
said  to  herself,  that  she  had  first  awakened  to  the 
adventure  of  the  passions  of  the  intelligence,  and  had 
first  realised  that  experience  could  have  no  savour 
for  her  without  the  comparison  of  a  standard.  The 
infusion  of  a  sense  of  these  relations  into  her  uncharted 
existence  seemed  to  her  to  have  thrown  all  its  dramatic 
significance  into  proportion. 

Yet  to  realise  when  she  stood,  in  the  light  of  these 
fresh  values,  and  to  look  forward,  had  also  been  to 
look  back.  She  crossed  the  room  to  where  the  Virgin 
rose  on  her  pedestal.  Between  the  fixed  serenity  of 
the  painted  eyes  and  the  turmoil  of  her  own  there 
stretched,  as  she  felt,  every  moment  of  the  recent 
weeks.  They  laid  on  her  a  hand  of  reclamation.  .  .  . 

The  stages  by  which  she  had  come  to  the  recognition 
of  an  authority  outside  her  own  marked  the  passage 
of  the  recent  days  more  than  any  division  of  time. 
Her  constant  sense  that  she  was  progressing  to  a  pre 
conceived  end  had  penetrated  her  until,  with  a  twist 

[157] 


ASCENT 

of  her  imagination,  she  could  regard  it  as  having  the 
poignancy  of  the  fatalistic.  She  remembered  first  her 
powerlessness  to  fling  off  the  impression  of  Father 
Ames's  lectures.  His  inaccessibility  was  explained  to 
her  anew,  every  time  she  heard  him,  as  if  the  crowd 
which  separated  him  from  her  were  symbolic  of  the 
thronged  issues  of  life  which  stood  between  them.  Yet 
she  never  turned,  as  she  went  out,  to  catch  a  final 
glimpse  of  his  prepossessed  look,  that  she  did  not 
equally  feel  that  what  enchained  her  most  was  the  mys 
tery  as  to  how,  in  the  midst  of  such  galling  routine, 
he  kept  his  fervour.  The  contradiction  of  the  two 
was  a  continual  excitation  to  her.  Each  time  they  met 
she  had  felt  the  perfect  withdrawal  of  his  predestina 
tion.  But  she  had  felt  no  less  all  that  had  put  soft 
ness  into  his  severity  and  fire  into  his  opinions;  and 
she  began  insensibly  to  turn  and  regard  herself  in  the 
light  of  them. 

In  their  earlier  talks,  the  touch  of  his  thoughts  on 
hers  had  invariably  involved  a  clash  of  her  judgment 
with  his,  and  her  display  of  a  defiance  of  his  conclusions 
which,  as  she  was  always  the  first  to  tell  him,  was  only 
show.  But  with  the  passage  of  each  week,  the  stimula 
tion  of  her  sense  of  combat  had  seemed  to  her  more  and 
more,  in  the  light  of  his  amused  smile,  a  mere  agility. 
The  circumstances  in  which  they  met  deepened  this 
impression.  As  the  spring  grew  later,  Devon  had 
suggested  that  his  quiet  library,  with  such  masses  of 
books  at  hand  that  even  Ames  might  condescend  to 
glance  at,  was  a  better  place  to  put  together  his  lectures 
than  Father  Croft's  room,  with  its  incessant  inter 
ruptions.  Olive  never  passed  Father  Ames  on  the  stairs 
or  watched  him  across  the  table,  on  the  rare  occasions 

[158] 


ASCENT 

when  he  could  be  persuaded  to  stay  to  lunch,  without 
being  conscious  of  an  alteration  in  herself.  Old  Lacy's 
penetration  in  her  was  too  just  for  her  not  to  see  that 
this  influence  was  not  a  temporary  fashion  of  her 
opinion.  It  was  daily  apparent  to  her,  in  the  swing 
of  their  arguments,  in  the  sudden  thrust  of  her  con 
tradictions  and  the  sudden  surrender  of  her  point  of 
view,  that  she  was  sacrificing  something  of  the  integ 
rity  of  her  individualism.  The  delicate  pleasure 
involved  in  the  abandonment  of  her  cult  of  a  hard  per 
sonality  had  shaken  her  old  premises  and  certainties; 
and  the  distances  she  had  travelled  had  not  yet  struck 
her  as  forcibly  as  when  she  looked  up  at  the  statue, 
with  the  sense  of  all  its  significance  to  Ames.  .  .  . 

She  turned  abruptly.  An  instinct  of  defensiveness 
rose  in  her  for  an  instant,  so  powerfully  that  she  felt 
herself  caught  in  the  sharp  revulsion  of  revolt.  Her 
eyes  ran  over  the  room  with  a  new  and  harder  intelli 
gence.  What,  after  all,  had  led  her  to  yield  herself 
to  this  adventure  of  incongruity?  The  piety  of  the 
objects  on  the  wall  and  strewn  over  the  tables  seemed 
to  her  suddenly  thin;  why  had  she  not  sooner  seen, 
she  wondered,  the  attitude  in  it?  The  beat  and  roar 
of  the  streets  below  filled  her  thoughts  for  a  moment; 
why,  she  wondered,  had  she  done  so  fantastic  a  thing 
as  to  come?  Father  Ames  had  made,  four  or  five  days 
before,  one  of  his  swift  departures,  with  only  a 
telephone  message  from  his  secretary  to  explain  that 
for  the  rest  of  the  week  he  would  not  trouble  them  to 
let  him  use  the  library.  She  had  seen  in  the  papers, 
the  same  morning,  that  he  had  just  returned,  from 
Baltimore,  and  was  to  speak  in  the  evening;  and  she 
had  instantly  assumed,  as  an  opportunity  of  seeing 

[159] 


ASCENT 

him,  the  obligation  to  tell  him  that  his  books  and 
papers  were  on  Devon's  table  and  waiting  for  him 
where  he  had  left  them.  Yet  had  she  a  real  desire 
• — she  put  it  to  herself  with  a  touch  of  roughness — to 
see  him?  In  her  momentary  reaction  even  his  com 
pelling  figure  paled  and  all  its  outlines  wavered  and 
faded  into  unreality.  Their  terms  of  thought  were 
so  fatally  different,  she  told  herself,  that  if  she  con 
fessed  to  him  the  inspiration  of  feeling  which  had 
brought  her,  he  would  put  it  down  as  a  cheap  fugitive 
impulse.  .  .  . 

Her  back  had  been  towards  the  door  when  she  was 
aware  of  a  light  sound,  and  as  she  wheeled  about  she 
saw  him  standing  on  the  threshold.  She  had  heard  no 
preliminary  step  on  the  stairs,  and  she  had  been  confi 
dent  that  the  other  rooms  were  empty;  yet  she  had  been 
so  possessed  by  her  reflections  of  the  last  moments  that 
she  looked  at  him  with  a  preoccupation  beyond  sur 
prise.  He  evidently  caught  something  of  the  conflicting 
uncertainties  in  her  face,  for  without  speaking  he 
closed  the  door  and  confronted  her. 

As  the  seconds  passed,  it  seemed  to  her  that  they 
had  never  before  exchanged  a  glance  so  clear  and  sus 
tained.  His  look  was  none  the  less  perfectly  a  defence 
of  his  thought;  but  for  the  first  time  she  felt  it  admitted 
and  revealed  to  her  as  defence,  and  as  an  infinitely  fine 
assemblage  of  his  array  of  weapons. 

He  was  silent  for  so  long  that  when  she  spoke  she 
was  conscious  of  his  tacit  admission  that  the  tone  of 
their  talk  was  to  be  beyond  the  usual  exchange. 

"Well,  Father,  I  offer  no  apology  for  coming.  I'd 
scarcely  one  framed  in  my  head — but  if  I  had  I 
shouldn't  use  itl" 

[160] 


ASCENT 

Father  Ames  took  her  up  instantly.  "No  apology  is 
ever  necessary  in  coming  here.  That's  what  a  priest 
expects ;  and  people  are  in  and  out  all  day,  to  see  Father 
Croft  if  not  to  see  me." 

Olive's  smile  dealt  for  a  second  with  the  accent  in 
which  he  spoke. 

"You  dispose  easily  enough  of  my  being  here; 
perhaps  you  will  be  stirred  a  little  more  out  of  your 
point  of  view — your  comfortable  point  of  view — when 
I  tell  you  what  brought  me.  I'm  here  to  say  nothing 
more  or  less  than  that  I  can't  go  on  seeing  you." 

Father  Ames  remained  motionless.  Only  his  eyes 
carried  his  animation  and  returned  it  to  meet  her 
insistence. 

She  pursued,  with  another  brief  touch  of  her  irony. 
"I've  little  illusion  about  it;  you  will  do  me  the  justice 
to  admit  I'm  honest!  I've  made  and  unmade  this 
decision  a  hundred  times;  but  each  time  it's  none  the 
less  a  decision,  and  since  you  and  John  will  aways 
have  so  close  a  friendship — you  understand?  It's 
quite  clear?  I  shan't  come  here  again,  nor,  if  I  can 
help  it,  see  you  again." 

"Why  not?"    His  voice  was  as  rapid  as  before. 

"Why  not — as  if  I  could  answer  that!  You  must 
ask  so  deep  a  question  of  your  famous  God  .  .  ." 
She  cut  herself  off.  "Oh,  I  don't  know  any  reason.  I 
know  only  the  condition — that  I  can't  go  on  as  I  am, 
that  I  can't  see  you." 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Devon,"  his  tone  was  measured  to 
the  lightest  shading,  "I  must  really  ask  you  to  leave 
me  out  of  what  is  a  matter  of  the  salvation  of  your 
soul!" 

"Your  phrase  will  do  well  enough  to  cover  it,  I 
[161] 


ASCENT 

suppose."  Her  retort  was  as  quick  as  his.  "I  have 
come  to  suspect,  you  know,  that  your  terms  of  morality 
are  sometimes  convenient!  Oh,  I  don't  mean  to  be 
harsh,  and  you'll  have  to  forgive  me  if  I  am.  The 
truth,  quite  simply,  is  that  you've  brought  me  to  a 
new  state  of  mind,  you've  put  me  face  to  face  with 
these  things,  and  yet  you  refuse  to  solve  them  for  me. 
That's  what  you  regard  as  fair.  No,  I  tell  you  I'm 
utterly  miserable.  .  .  ." 

For  a  second  their  silence  hung  between  them;  then 
Father  Ames's  hand  made  a  sudden  motion,  in  the 
direction,  she  saw,  of  the  little  Virgin  on  the  pedestal. 

"It's  my  profound  belief  that  in  His  time  God  will 
solve  them  for  you;  meanwhile,  may  I  say  that  I 
scarcely  think  your  judgment  of  them  goes  beyond  a 
momentary  feeling."  His  smile  showed  for  an  instant, 
as  if  he  consciously  eased  the  strain  of  her  attitude. 
"You've  never  read,  I  suppose,  that  greatest  of  the 
mystics,  who  says  that  faith  must  be  both  'certain  and 
obscure.'  Yours — we  must  admit  it — isn't  yet  strong 
enough  to  be  either." 

"That's  what  you  say,  and  that's  what  of  course 
you  think.  But  I  have  tried  to  believe;  indeed,  I've 
most  truly  tried!  And  what's  the  result?  There's 
something  in  me  wrhich  drops  like  an  acid  on  the  first 
motion  of  belief.  It's  always  whispering  over  my 
shoulder.  ...  I  question  and  I  deny  with  each  breath 
I  draw.  I  know  I  never  lived  any  sort  of  life  until 
I  came  to  this  pass;  but  the  question  now  is,  how 
am  I  to  go  on  living  it  at  all?"  She  stretched  her  hand 
towards  him,  with  a  sharp  gesture.  "It's  you,  Father, 
who've  done  it  to  me,  done  it  as  evidently  and  directly 
as  anything's  ever  been  evident  and  direct.  In  the  last 

[162] 


ASCENT 

weeks,  since  I've  seen  you  and  listened  to  you,  there's 
never  been  a  day  .  .  ."  she  caught  and  controlled  her 
voice.  "Oh,  I  know  you've  said  nothing  direct!  But 
you've  changed  me.  I'm  different,  my  premises  are 
vanished,  you've  shaken  my  confidence.  I  don't  know 
where  I  am  or  where  I'm  going.  .  .  ." 

He  arrested  her.  "Ah,  I've  seen  your  suffering.  I 
believe  it's  been  deep,  and  I'm  sorrier  for  it  than  I 
can  say;  but — 

She  confronted  him  steadily.  "But  you  haven't 
understood  it." 

"You  must  let  me  remind  you  that  it's  scarcely 
been  my  business  to  understand  it." 

"Oh,  I  know  all  that!"  Her  impatience  flared  up 
like  a  light.  "But  what's  a  theoretic  pity  at  the  place 
I've  reached?  I  can't  exist,  I  can't  go  through  this 
routine  called  living,  without  belief;  that  much  I  know; 
and  yet  I  can't  believe.  It's  grim  enough,  isn't  it? 
You've  killed  my  trust  in  nothingness,  and  yet  you 
haven't  given  me  a  God.  I  go  to  mass — why?  Because 
you  would  want  me  to;  not  because  I  want  to;  and  I 
come  away — well,  critical  and  incredulous,  and  asking 
myself  how  on  earth  it  can  mean  to  you  what  it  does.  I 
read  the  books  I  hear  you  speak  of,  because  you've 
named  them;  if  it  were  anyone  else  who  cited  them,  I'd 
laugh  in  his  face.  .  .  ."  She  held  herself  again.  "I've 
tried,  Father — believe  it  or  not,  but  I  have.  I've  tried 
to  imagine  what  you'd  think  I  ought  to  do,  and  to  do 
it.  I've  made  sacrifices  that  were  intimate  and 
cruel.  .  .  ." 

Father  Ames's  response  also  hung  for  an  instant. 
His  eyes  seemed  to  play  on  the  new  exposure  of  her 
beauty  which  came  with  the  exposure  of  her  pain,  and 

[163] 


ASCENT 

then  his  slight  smile  recurred.  "Don't  we  all  make 
them — such  sacrifices?  And  are  they  really,  in  the 
light  of  larger  things,  very  important?" 

Her  voice  sharpened,  as  if  she  instinctively  felt  the 
sharper  thrust  necessary  to  penetrate  his  sympathy. 
"Yes,  but  do  you  know  how  intimate  they've  been — and 
how  cruel?"  She  took  a  step  nearer  him.  "Do  you 
know  that  it's  because  of  what  you  think  is  a  woman's 
duty  that  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  have  a  child?  Oh, 
yes, — I've  made  up  my  mind  to  it!  It  is  not  a  case, 
with  a  person  like  me,  of  the  will  of  heaven  or  of  the 
accidents  of  feeling.  I've  told  John  I  want  a  child, 
and  I'll  have  one — I'll  go  through  what  I  must  go 
through  because  I  know  as  well  as  if  you'd  said  it  that 
it  lifts  me  an  infinitesimal  bit  higher  in  your  judg 
ment.  You  see," — she  made  a  wide  gesture — "there's 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  it.  I've  tried  to  believe — 
and  I've  succeeded  only  in  believing  in  you." 

Father  Ames  confronted  her  with  his  silence  still 
complete.  But  as  she  ended,  it  reached  her  confused 
consciousness  that  for  the  first  time  she  was  seeing 
in  his  face  the  force  of  his  certitude,  in  all  its  structural 
parts.  Even  in  her  exaltation  she  traced  for  an  instant, 
in  its  profound  pity,  the  history  of  the  growth  of  his 
sympathy,  the  turbulences  he  must  have  seen  people 
traverse,  the  wreckage  he  had  had  made  of  his  confi 
dence  and  the  dust  into  which  some  of  his  conquests 
must  have  fallen.  Then  his  expression  changed  to  its 
habitual  aspect.  He  drew  out  his  watch,  crossed  the 
room  to  his  desk  and  selected  with  a  critical  hand  a 
sheaf  of  papers  from  those  which  encumbered  it. 

"When  you  are  ready  to  view  this  matter  in  its 
proper  proportions,  we'll  talk  of  it.  I'm  always — need 

[164] 


ASCENT 

I  say  it? — at  your  service.  You've  complicated  your 
question,  so  far.  Your  immense — and  very  generous — 
responsiveness  and  your  keen  creative  sense  have  lost 
the  mass  for  you  in  detail.  That  will  pass  soon  enough. 
Until  then —  "  he  bent  his  eyes  again  on  the  papers  he 
held,  and  detached  one  or  two  of  them.  "I'm  lecturing 
to-night,  and  I've  just  had  news,  in  this  worst  of 
rushed  days,  of  the  arrival  of  my  old  friend  Terence 
Bourdas  and  his  sister.  They  sail  for  home  to-morrow, 
and  I'd  sent  you  a  note,  which  must  just  have  missed 
you,  to  your  house,  to  say  what  pleasure  it  would  give 
me  if  you  could  find  a  moment  to  call  on  Lady  Isabel. 
Perhaps  you  could  make  time  to  run  in  early  this 
afternoon?  I  shall  hope  to  save  half  an  hour  to  see 
her  myself,  just  before  dinner — if  only  things  are  kind 
to  me!  You'll  find  her  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
unremarkable  women." 

The  impenetrability  of  his  voice  seemed  to  close 
like  a  wall  around  her.  She  dropped  into  a  chair 
and  pressed  her  hands  to  her  face. 

"So  that,"  she  broke  out,  "is  all  it  means  to  you!" 

His  voice  sounded  to  her  as  if  it  had  travelled  an 
immeasurable  length  before  it  reached  her. 

"Do  you  seriously  think  that  after  my  life  as  a 
priest  the  suffering  of  a  human  soul  means  nothing 
to  me?" 

She  had  never  so  clearly  felt  in  his  tone  the  note 
of  his  office.  Under  its  impact  she  wavered  for  a 
second  and  then  rose.  Her  tears  trembled  on  her 
cheeks,  as  she  tried  to  steady  herself.  Then  she  man 
aged  to  raise  her  hands,  and  touched,  uncertainly,  her 
hair  and  the  lace  on  her  dress. 

"I  can  only  apologise  to  you,  Father.  I  can't  imagine 
[165] 


ASCENT 

what  has  made  me  burden  you  with  all  this  complaint. 
Let  us  call  it  the  heat.  It  was  really  most  inconsiderate 
of  me  to  drop  in  here,  in  this  sudden  way."  The  fixity 
of  his  eyes  steadied  her,  and  she  pursued.  "Yes,  of 
course,  I'll  go  to  see  Lady  Isabel.  Your  note's  at  the 
house,  you  say,  with  her  address?  And  has  Father 
Croft,  do  you  suppose,  such  a  thing  as  a  mirror?  If 
there's  one  anywhere  about,  I  should  like  to  see  if 
all  this  hysteria  I've  imposed  on  you  hasn't  perhaps 
disarranged  my  hat.  .  .  ." 


[166] 


XIII 

"  T  F  you  know,  Father,  how  completely  enchanted 
I  am  to  see  you!" 

Lady  Isabel  had  caught  his  hand  with  the  same 
eagerness  which  warmed  her  eyes  and  her  large  smile. 
"What  a  dreadful  dreary  little  room  in  which  to  talk 
to  you — you  whom  one  would  always  want  to  see  in 
such  delicious  quiet  places;  no,  don't  reproach  me! 
I'll  put  up  with  it!  I  couldn't  very  well  do  less,  con 
sidering  all  you  yourself  have  had  to  bear  of  hotels 
and  turmoil.  And  now  tell  me;  tell  me,  please,  all 
that's  happened!" 

Father  Ames,  for  an  instant,  reflected  the  pleasure 
of  her  smile  in  his  own,  without  speaking;  and  in  his 
pause  the  first  thing  of  which  he  was  aware  was  that 
here,  confronting  him,  was  the  person  who  had  always 
best  comprehended  his  silences.  Ever  since  his  fifth  or 
sixth  year,  and  hers,  it  had  been  inevitable  to  him  that 
when  he  met  her  frank  and  frequently  impatient  eyes, 
he  should  meet  in  them  this  sudden  apprehension.  He 
could  remember  it,  in  days  of  games  in  which  he  had 
usually  been  the  most  turbulent  and  the  wildest,  in  his 
childish  punishments,  his  sicknesses  and  his  recoveries, 
and  through  all  the  uncertainties  of  his  last  youth  and 
his  first  maturity.  One  of  the  most  valuable  things 
about  Isabel  Bourdas,  he  had  always  thought,  was  the 
muteness  essential  in  her  sympathy.  She  had  never 
expressed  a  solicitude  or  uttered  a  comment;  and  this 
had  made  him  trust  her  to  see  the  signs  of  inner  experi- 

[167] 


ASCENT 

ences  as  intricate  as  those  he  traversed  before  he  took 
his  vows.  She  was  instinctively  incapable  of  pausing 
at  the  detail;  he  fancied  her  always,  in  his  view  of  her, 
with  her  sharp  experienced  gaze  on  nothing  nearer 
than  the  horizon,  and  her  rigidity  of  judgment  only  for 
herself. 

As  he  had  waited  for  her,  in  the  hotel  sitting  room 
perched  high  above  the  out-spread  city,  and  with  its 
windows  full  of  the  late  afternoon  light,  he  had  thought, 
as  he  watched  the  vast  outlook  with  all  its  effulgent 
vitality  flaring  up  to  the  sky,  how  empty  his  past 
months  had  been  not  only  of  such  a  presence  but  of 
such  surroundings  as  produced  it.  It  was  significant 
that  this  was  the  first  hour  in  which  he  had  drawn 
breath  slowly  enough  to  measure  this  lack — the  first 
when  he  had  extricated  himself,  on  his  receipt  of 
Isabel's  note,  from  the  intricacies  of  his  engagements 
for  any  personal  reason.  He  had  known  with  exactitude 
that  it  was  not  merely  the  long  sequence  of  rooms  like 
this  and  of  views  like  the  one  beyond,  of  a  constant 
succession  of  duties  which  it  required  all  his  will  to 
save  from  the  crystallisation  of  monotony  and  minds 
which  one's  best  sincerity  couldn't  penetrate,  which  had 
touched  the  springs  of  his  energy  to  the  point  of  an 
exhaustion.  For  some  years  the  terms  of  his  intellect 
had  been  the  terms  of  his  activity,  as  the  terms  of  his 
faith  were  those  of  his  subsistence.  There  had  never 
existed  any  doubt  in  his  judgment,  any  more  than  in 
the  judgment  of  his  superiors,  that  his  services  were 
to  be  by  means  of  a  mind  which  was  so  plainly  pre 
pared  to  be  an  instrument.  His  lectures  had  begun 
early,  his  preaching  had  immediately  been  a  duty, 
and  the  lines  of  his  special  use  had  always  been  clear. 

[168] 


ASCENT 

But  in  the  last  weeks  his  thirst  for  a  change  to  some 
comparative  peace  had  slowly  allied  itself  to  a  thirst 
for  a  change  in  his  spiritual  apprehension,  as  if  the 
confused  traffic  of  life  through  which  he  had  passed 
had  exposed  to  him  the  nudity  of  the  constructive  parts 
of  existence. 

In  his  last  months  in  Europe,  several  of  which  he 
spent  in  Rome,  the  fatigue  of  a  too  constant  concentra 
tion  had — as  he  had  recently  begun  to  think — already 
touched  him.  He  was  perpetually  used  for  service  in 
situations  where  he  was  in  attack  or  defence.  The 
unrelaxing  strain  of  this  attitude  took  something  from 
him  beside  meditation.  He  had  sometimes  wondered 
if  his  religious  ardour  itself  did  fan  to  flame  more 
slowly  and  if  it  had  not  less  penetration  in  its  heat. 
He  remembered  in  particular  one  cold  spring  after 
noon  when  he  had  spent  hours,  after  a  ceremony  in 
St.  Peter's,  with  the  Cardinal-Secretary.  The  dim 
rooms,  filled  with  the  touches  of  red  and  violet,  the 
smooth  insistence  of  the  English  Cardinal  who  was 
recommending  that  he  be  sent  to  America,  the  delicate 
flattery  which  had  been  accorded  him,  all  the  fine 
machinery  of  so  immensely  simple  a  whole  had  never 
seemed  to  him  of  a  closer  perfection,  nor  that  perfec 
tion  more  nearly  wearisome  in  its  inexorable  complete 
ness.  As  soon  as  he  was  released  he  had  gone  back  to 
the  rooms  he  occupied,  over  a  little  fruit  shop  in  the 
Bocca  di  Leone;  and  seated  at  his  writing  table,  with 
his  head  in  his  hands,  he  had  let  the  dusk  deepen  as 
the  force  of  his  prayer  for  isolation  deepened,  and  for 
the  freedom  to  express  in  his  outer  occupation  the  felt 
mystery  of  his  inner  life.  .  .  . 

He  turned  back  from  his  thoughts,  with  an  effort, 
[169] 


ASCENT 

to  face  his  companion,  as  she  sat  on  the  sofa  beside  him. 

"My  dear  child,  if  you've  any  notion  of  how  good 
it  is  to  have  you  here!  When  I  found  your  note  on 
my  desk  this  morning,  I  could  think  only  of  my  grati 
tude — except  that  I  thought,  too,  as  I  always  do,  of 
how  Miss  Hibson — you  remember  Miss  Hibson,  our 
worst  governess? — used  to  scold  you  for  the  way  you 
made  your  g's.  And  Terence — where's  he?" 

"Oh,  Terence  has  gone  to  pore  over  the  fourteenth 
century  woodcuts  in  the  museum,  of  course.  He  started 
after  breakfast  and  I  probably  shan't  see  him  until 
midnight;  though  if  he'd  known  you  were  coming — ! 
You  may  find  him,  at  any  moment,  on  your  doormat, 
like  the  faithful,  shaggy  creature  he  is.  If  you  knew 
how  I  thank  heaven  for  him!  Since  all  the  rest  of  us 
are  so  magnificently  married  and  placed,  it  seems  as  if 
we  two  had  just  been  meant  for  this — to  see  each  other 
through.  You  know,  since  you've  been  away,  that 
I've  definitely  become  the  lonely  old  maid  of  fiction!" 

The  intelligence  in  Father  Ames's  eyes  deepened. 
"Yes— I  heard." 

"You  saw  in  the  papers,  I  suppose?"  She  put  her 
question  with  no  change  in  her  smile. 

"Could  one  escape  it?" 

Lady  Isabel  laughed.  "It  was  rather  heralded,  I 
admit.  Francis  always  has  his  eye  on  possible  con 
stituents,  hasn't  he?  And  he's  very  far  up,  you  know 
— immeasurably  far  up.  Father  says  that  if  there  were 
a  division  to-morrow,  he'd  head  the  party  as  inevitably 
as  dawn  follows  night." 

"And  you  thought  it  was  better — ?"  The  delicacy 
in  his  tone  seemed  a  link  in  the  long  chain  of  considera 
tion  which  bound  him  to  her. 

[170] 


ASCENT 

"Oh,  obviously!  You've  always  told  me,  you  know, 
that  it  oughtn't  to  come  off, — our  marriage.  Yes — and 
I  know  what  you've  always  thought  of  Francis.  Oh, 
I  don't  deny  it!  But  isn't  it  all  according  to  chance, 
to  opportunity,  to  a  luck  he's  never  had — for  all  his 
amazing  luck?  He's  a  simple  person,  you  know,  and 
he  needed  the  simplest  discipline.  He  needs  the  luck 
of  the  right  unsuccesses  and  the  right  failures."  She 
made  an  impatient  gesture.  "You  see  I've  had  my 
revolts,  my  scepticisms,  my  arguments  which  were  both 
sensible  and  foolish !  But  the  end  was  that  one  after 
noon,  when  we  were  sitting  stolidly  over  the  tea  table, 
I  told  him  our  engagement  had  become  a  myth,  that 
people  were  tired  of  it,  that  even  after  two  years  I 
wasn't  yet  convinced  it  was  best  it  should  come  to 
anything,  and  that  he  ought  to  marry." 

"And  he  acquiesced?" 

"He  asked  me,"  her  smile  was  rapid — "of  course 
he  asked  me,  what  the  Duke  thought.  I  said  father 
thought  quite  simply  nothing — he  was  too  busy  with 
salmon;  and  I  also  pointed  out — what  I  was  sure  he 
hadn't  noticed! — that  Mrs.  Montagu  was  a  widow. 
Not  divorced — he's  clever  enough  to  see  the  dis 
advantage  of  that  kind  of  perpetual  remarriage — but 
a  widow.  Oh,  she's  already  doing  magnificently  for 
him,  she  and  her  millions.  She's  as  indispensable  to 
him  as  his  horses  and  his  secretaries.  She  has  a  hard 
effulgence  which  is  admirable  in  public;  one  rarely 
sees  her,  yet  she's  always  there.  So,  as  I  tell  you  .  .  ." 

Father  Ames's  hand  touched  her  arm.  "I  think 
the  thing  I'm  gladdest  you  have  is  your  recognition 
of  what  it's  cost  you,  your  generosity  of  payment, 
your  sense  of  proportion  and  of  result.  No — I  have 

[171] 


ASCENT 

always  been  completely  confident  in  your  judgment. 
I've  prayed  for  you  and  I've  thought  of  you — need  I 
say  it?  And  I've  had  my  comfort,  not  only  in,  the  fact 
that  you  were  right,  but  in  all  you  have  to  do,  in  your 
privileges  and  responsibilities." 

"Yes;  I  know  all  that."  Lady  Isabel  shook  her 
head.  "But  the  world's  so  changed;  and  when  it 
comes  down  to  the  truth,  there's  nothing  in  particular 
that  I'm  good  for.  What  is  a  woman  good  for,  who's 
seen  the  world  go  by,  as  I've  seen  it  go  by  at  B rough, 
and  yet  who's  never  been  part  of  it?  who's  heard 
everything  discussed,  and  yet  who's  never  been  of  any 
use  in  the  discussion?  My  situations  have  all  been 
simple — too  simple!  Don't  you  see,  Father, — there's 
been  nothing  to  relate  me  to  life?  I  open  a  bazaar 
now  and  again,  I  trot  about  with  father,  I  go  down 
to  Harringford  if  Minnie  wants  to  yacht  and  the 
children  are  ill.  And  Terry — there's  always  dear 
Terry.  .  .  ,"  She  ended,  and  in  an  abrupt  instant  her 
tone  altered.  "But  it  would  have  been  a  great  luxury 
to  me  if  I  had  been  able  never  to  see  Francis  again!" 

The  sensitiveness  of  his  face  wavered.  "Ah,  I  can 
imagine  .  .  .1" 

Isabel  Bourdas,  with  her  eyes  kept  toward  the  win 
dow,  made  a  quick  gesture. 

"Why,  with  you,  is  one  perpetually  in  the  confes 
sional?  Oh,  I  don't  mean  that  you're  always  testing 
and  pardoning — though  your  judgment  always  does 
seem  to  me  to  test  and  your  taste  to  pardon!  But  you 
draw  out  something  in  one — draw  out  a  definition  of 
one's  life.  I'm  not  silent  with  other  people — you  know 
that!  But  I'm  silent  with  myself,  and  you  make  me 
break  all  those  ugly  reticences.  .  .  .  How  much 

[172] 


ASCENT 

lovelier  to  have  lovely  complex  armour  like  yours,  all 
inlaid  with  golden  flowers,  to  make  one  forget  its  pro 
tective  use!"  Her  smile  was  touched  for  a  moment 
with  the  intricacies  of  her  knowledge  of  him.  "But 
you  can't  divert  me  from  the  personal!  What  has 
made  you  look  so  tired?" 

Father  Ames  returned  her  amusement.  "You  mean 
that  I  generally  manage  to  conceal  myself  better?  After 
all,  I  suppose,  it's  a  wonder  that  I'm  alive,  with  a  lecture 
in  Quebec  one  minute  and  in  the  south  the  next.  But 
as  if  one  minded  that,  if  one's  body  can  stand  it; 
and  thank  heaven  mine  can!" 

"You've  had  a  terrific  success." 

"The  Archbishop  here  seems  to  think  it  hasn't  gone 
so  badly.  I've  seen  a  few  helpful  and  delightful  men; 
I've  had  a  few  responsive  audiences;  for  the  rest — ' 
His  shoulders  rose  and  fell;  he  had  risen  to  stand  in 
front  of  the  ornate  brass-trimmed  hearth  and  the 
fireless  grate,  and  his  eyes  passed  over  the  room,  whose 
only  personality  seemed  to  be  in  the  long-accumulated 
signs  of  transient  occupancies.  "For  the  rest,  if  you 
ask  me  what  has  happened,  nothing's  happened.  My 
life  has  been  as  dead  as  these  walls." 

Lady  Isabel  nodded,  with  her  eyes  on  her  large 
white  hands,  clasped  on  her  knee.  When  she  next 
raised  her  look  it  had  a  touch  of  something  more 
intimately  alive  with  the  recollections  of  their  com 
panionship. 

"I  know!  If  only  you'd  been  born  a  Franciscan 
— haven't  I  often  said  it?  Your  intellectuality  is 
almost  too  unbelievably  aristocratic;  you  simply  can't 
help  all  your  preferences  and  your  refusals;  you  simply 
can't  save  yourself  from  your  delicacies.  You,  you 

[i73] 


ASCENT 

see,  have  inflexions  of  thought;  the  rest  of  us  have 
just  thoughts.  We  all  live  on  the  manifestations  of 
life,  and  you — you  live  on  its  causes!" 

"Well,  if  it  be  the  will  of  God,"  Father  Ames 
laughed — "111  do  in  the  future  a  little  better  by  those 
causes.  WThen  I  was  young,  or  younger,  I  used  to 
think  I'd  try  for  a  parish  in  the  East  End;  but  now  I 
know  that  if  I  could  choose  it  would  be  something  far 
different.  It  isn't  so  much  that  I  want  to  get  away 
from  all  this  over-activity  of  the  mind — it's  that  I 
want  to  get  beneath  it."  He  made  one  of  his  quick 
gestures.  "I  want  to  let  my  inner  self  breathe,  to 
search  for  those  hidden  mysteries  which  lie  beyond 
the  senses.  That's  why  I  sometimes  pray,"  his  eyes 
caught  her  eyes,  "that  I  may  be  allowed  to  end  in  a 
monastic  life." 

She  met  the  gravity  of  his  look  for  another  second 
and  then  drew  her  brows  together,  as  if  she  refused 
the  idea  consideration.  "As  if  I  hadn't  always  seen 
it  hovering  over  you,  ever  since  I  can  remember  any 
thing!  And  as  if  I  hadn't  always  been  convinced  of 
the  utter  impossibility  of  it!  You,  with  your  rapidity, 
your  trained  attack — no,  you  couldn't!" 

His  smile  again  disposed  of  the  intolerance  of  her 
tone.  "It's  all  very  well  to  say  no,  but  I  very 
well  could!  Oh,  sometimes  all  the  trend  of  things 
seems  to  me  so  clearly  towards  it!  I,  who've 
expounded  theories,  to  be  free  at  last  to  deal  per 
petually  in  the  drama  of  the  religious  existence;  to 
deal,  after  all  my  theological  differentiations,  in  a 
community  of  spirit  which  lies  forever  beyond  ques 
tion.  If  you  knew  how  tired  I  am  of  individualism! 
It's  what  I've  most  detested  and  what  I've  most 


ASCENT 

prayed  to  be  saved — all  this  surface  development  of 
the  human  being  and  this  neglect  of  his  soul!" 

She  could  only  repeat  her  protestation.  "It's  out 
of  the  question.  It  would  be  too  much  against  the 
very  talents  heaven  has  given  you — it  would  be  a 
brutal  wrong."  Her  glance  sharpened,  as  it  bent  on 
him.  "Is  this  what  America's  done  to  you?" 

He  was  as  instant  as  she.  "And  do  you  think  I'd 
blame  poor  America,  if  I  considered  it  had  led  me  to 
a  spiritual  advancement?  No,  but  what  America  has 
done  for  me  is  to  make  me  wonder  what  I  am.  Do 
I  at  all  exist,  except  as  a  kind  of  trickster,  playing 
with  the  right  weapons, — yes! — but  always  juggling! 
Oh,  I  hope  I  needn't  tell  you  that  if  ever  God  gives 
me  this  grace,  it's  a  move  I'll  make  with  all  of  me — 
that  the  continuity  with  me  will  strive  to  be  organic, 
and  not  mere  form — that  my  soul  will  take  all  the 
vows!"  He  drew  out  his  watch.  "And  now  let  me 
ask  you — you  saw  Mrs.  Devon?" 

Isabel  turned  with  an  evident  difficulty  from  her 
thoughts.  "Yes.  She  came,  of  course.  And  of 
course  I  thought  her  extraordinary.  We  talked  for 
half  an  hour,  in  the  politest  phrases;  and  at  the 
end—  "  her  attention  fixed  itself  again  on  him.  "Why 
in  the  world  did  you  want  me  to  see  her?" 

Father  Ames's  face  lightened  with  his  ease.  "I 
scarcely  expected  you  to  find  each  other  out!  Yes, 
she's  extraordinary  enough.  So  extraordinary  that, 
as  you'll  see,  it's  easier  for  me  to  tell  you  who  she  is 
than  what.  You  don't  perhaps  remember  Devon,  the 
most  charming  of  men,  full  of  sensitiveness  and  intelli 
gence?  He  was  up  at  Oxford  for  a  year  when  I  was 
so  frequently  there,  and  I  may  or  may  not  have  taken 

[175] 


ASCENT 

him  for  a  week-end  to  you  at  Trant — no,  I  think  not. 
But  what  you  probably  can't  help  remembering  is  his 
mother,  a  very  pretty  woman  who's  eternally  at  royal 
garden  parties.  .  .  ." 

He  had  run  along  under  the  fixity  of  her  gaze,  which 
deepened  to  recollection  as  she  answered. 

"I  have  a  thread  of  remembrance.  Someone  brought 
her  to  see  us,  a  year  or  so  ago.  But  nothing  like  her 
husband  or  her  mother-in-law  explains  this  girl." 

"No,  nothing  short  of  larger  causes.  She's  beyond 
the  usual  definition.  That's  why — "  his  eyes  again 
softened — "I  wanted  her  to  know  you;  why,  knowing 
you  had  only  this  one  day  before  sailing,  I  asked  you 
to  give  her  half  an  hour." 

Isabel  had  a  touch  of  impatience  for  his  explanation. 
"As  if  you  had  to  say  such  things  to  me!  Yet— 

"Yes,  that's  what  I  too  say  to  myself.  Yet  what 
can  one  do?  I've  seen  her  and  her  husband  constantly. 
In  these  last  weeks,  since  the  spring  turned  so  warm, 
they've  let  me  have  Devon's  library  to  work  in,  where 
I  had  silence  and  a  breeze.  They've  been  endlessly 
kind  to  me;  yet  there  it  is.  For  him  I'd  do  quite  simply 
anything,  and  for  her — what  I  can.  But  how  is 
one  to  reach  her?  How  is  one  ever  to  touch  such  a 
surface?" 

Isabel's  raillery  seemed  to  be  compounded  of  the 
variety  of  her  experiences.  "You  never  used  to  pros 
elytise!" 

He  seemed  to  have  been  carried,  with  his  thoughts, 
beyond  her  exclamation. 

"The  first  time  I  saw  Mrs.  Devon,  I  hope  I  had 
also  the  vision  to  see  beneath  her  attitude  of  mind, 
just  as  one  sees  beneath  what  is  really  the  attitude 

[176] 


ASCENT 

of  her  beauty.  Not  solely  for  Devon's  sake,  no;  very 
much  so,  but  not  solely,  since  she's  after  all  got  a 
soul  of  her  own."  He  waited.  "That's  why  I  wanted 
you  to  see  her — because  she  has  got  her  soul  to  deal 
with,  and  no  dealing  short  of  her  soul  will  help  her. 
And  I  wanted  her  to  see  you  because  I  wanted  her 
to  see  what  the  Church  does  for  a  woman  of  your  type 
— even  in  such  ways  as  she  could  penetrate."  He 
paused  again.  "Your  eyes  are  keen  enough,  my  dear 
Isabel,  to  have  caught  the  fact  that  if  she  is  very 
amazing  she  is  also  very  sad." 

Lady  Isabel's  tart  glance  seemed  to  question  the 
word  for  a  moment;  then  her  hand  continued  to 
smooth  back  her  thick  hair,  which  was  half  dark  and 
half  touched  with  grey.  "I  admit  she's  elusive!  She 
came  in  most  charmingly,  saying  how  good  it  was  of 
me  to  see  her  and  of  you  to  have  sent  her,  and  all 
that.  Couldn't  she  do  anything  to  help  us  get  off 
to-morrow,  and  couldn't  we  possibly  delay?  It  was 
all  beautifully  managed.  But  not  for  one  instant 
did  I  touch  her.  Oh,  she  was  clever;  clever  enough 
not  to  care  who  I  was,  or  about  B rough  and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  She  told  me  she  knew  very  little,  that  she'd 
lived  in  the  country  and  read  all  her  life  and  had  had 
no  opportunities,  that  she  longed  to  travel,  that  she 
longed  to  do  this  and  that.  But  somehow,  at  the  end, 
she  had  slipped  through  my  fingers  like  water.  Here 
was  I,  definite  and  placed,  just  as  definable  as  my 
hands  and  feet;  and  there  was  she — nothing."  She 
hesitated.  "Yes,  she  is  sad.  I  see  it.  You're  right, 
as  usual."  She  waited  again.  "What  she  really  left 
me  with,  in  spite  of  all  her  loveliness — and  it  is  lovely 
—and  her  cleverness  and  her  nervous  vitality,  was  the 


ASCENT 

fact  that  you  alone,  of  all  people,  could  have  the 
science  and  the  fineness  to  penetrate  her." 

"I  knew  you'd  see  it — oh,  not  that  I  could  help 
her,  but  that  she  must  have  help,  and  of  the  most 
difficult  kind  to  lend ;  and  that  once  you'd  seen  it,  you'd 
give  me  the  touch  of  your  intuition,  in  dealing  with 
her—  Father  Ames's  brows  drew  together.  "Of 
course  just  at  first  she  sweeps  one  off  one's  feet.  It's 
all  the  youth  of  the  world  which  confronts  one,  isn't 
it?  But  in  another  second  it's  all  changed  into  imper- 
manence,  into  the  tragic  lack  of  any  basic  experience. 
Sad! — the  more  I  see  of  her,  the  sadder  she  is.  Yet 
tragic  is  just  what  she  isn't.  One  needs  a  conscious 
ness,  a  contrast,  a  choice,  a  problem  and  a  denouement, 
for  the  tragic;  and  she's  quite  incapable  of  it." 

Isabel  broke  into  a  note  of  acquiescence.  "Yes, 
incapable.  And  even  her  loveliness — 

"Ah,  even  her  loveliness  isn't  subtle — it's  just  com 
plex.  There's  no  straightness  in  her  to  make  alive 
the  straightness  of  her  beautiful  back!  The  discon 
certing  thing  is  that  she  looks  fine  things  and  isn't 
fine" — he  had  turned  restlessly  up  and  down  the 
room,  and  as  he  reached  the  window  he  paused  for 
an  instant  beside  it. — "Like  all  this  out  here!  It's 
large,  but  it's  not  fine.  There's  no  consistent  develop 
ment,  no  education;  all  its  eagerness  is  greed  and  all 
its  aspiration  is  restlessness.  And  till  a  soul  or  a 
people  is  lifted — !"  He  broke  off,  with  a  resigned 
amusement  at  himself.  "So  you  see  Mrs.  Devon  has 
stirred  me;  stirred  my  pity  and  stirred  my  interest 
because  she  represents  difficulties  more  difficult  than 
herself."  He  turned,  and  sank  on  the  sofa  beside  her. 

[178] 


ASCENT 

"There's  only  one  solution  for  her,  and  that's  the 
Church." 

"You  think,  then — ?"  Her  tone  was  full  of  a  dry 
uncertainty,  but  her  eyes  hung  on  the  affirmations  of 
his  look  with  the  practice  of  a  long  recognition  of 
authority. 

"I  think  that  if  ever  a  being  was  adrift  outside  the 
Church,  it's  she.  She  needs  direction,  she  needs  an 
enforced  recognition  of  what's  beyond  her  mind.  And 
I  wanted  her  to  see,"  he  once  more  caught  her  eyes, 
"all  that,  in  all  the  centuries  that  your  blood  has  been 
of  it,  it's  done  for  you.  Oh,  she  must  come  to  it  her 
self,  and  she  thinks  now  that  she  never  will.  But  if 
ever  she  does  consider  it,  she'll  remember  you — she'll 
have  been  struck  by  your  wisdom  and  your  tolerance, 
and  the  way  life  has  left  you  only  richer.  One  gets 
that  much,  you  know,  even  in  half  an  hour!" 

Lady  Isabel's  smile  hesitated  for  a  second. 

"I  don't  believe  she  saw  anything  beyond  the  way 
I  dressed!" 

Father  Ames  rose.  "Ah,  well,  always  remember 
that  converts  are  made  by  reaction!  I'm  going  to 
make  the  time — how  I  don't  know,  but  somehow — 
to  see  you  and  Terence  for  a  second  in  the  morning. 
Thank  you,  my  child;  and  in  the  autumn,  perhaps,  in 
London.  .  .  ." 

"You  think  you'll  then  be  home?" 

"I  think  nothing — I  know  nothing.  I  know  only 
what  I  must  do  to-morrow."  He  drew  a  rapid  breath. 
"You  must  pray  for  me — I'm  very  tired.  And  one  of 
these  days,  when  we  talk  again,  I'll  finish  the  history 
of  Mrs.  Devon's  soul — or  rather  the  Church  will!" 


ASCENT 

Isabel  shook  her  head,  with  her  lucidity  still  sharp. 
"I  can't  see  her  with  a  soul!" 

"Then  we  must  help  her  to  find  itl"  His  retort, 
as  he  turned  back  from  the  door,  was  clear  with  his 
usual  energy.  "No — I  know  it's  a  puzzle.  Sometimes 
I've  said  to  myself  that  the  only  explanation  of  her 
is  that  she's  a  genius;  and  she  pays  the  penalty  of  a 
genius  without  a  talent — !  Then  to-morrow,  my  dear 
Isabel? " 


[180] 


XIV 

OLIVE  had  clearly  decided  that  she  would  not 
sleep  that  night.     She  had  left  Devon  after 
dinner  and  gone  to  her  room;  and  wrapped  in 
her  dressing  gown  she  had  dropped  into  a  chair  by 
her  window,  with  her  thoughts  swept  up  to  the  stars 
by  the  turmoil  in  her  mind. 

This  small  break  in  the  sequences  of  her  habit 
seemed  to  her  like  a  first  sign  of  the  difference  in  the 
integral  causes  of  all  her  habits.  One  of  the  excite 
ments  of  the  decision  on  the  brink  of  which  she  found 
herself  was  her  consciousness  that  it  would  initiate  her 
into  a  new  code  of  custom  and  new  rules  of  daily 
performance.  She  felt  herself  about  to  enter  a  world 
whose  presuppositions  allowed  for  and  consecrated 
the  emotional  in  human  experience — consecrated  the 
vigils  of  self-analysis  and  the  prostration  of  penitence 
no  less  than  the  exaltation  of  absolution.  To  steep 
herself  not  only  in  the  richness  of  a  ritual  but  to 
have  all  her  curiosity  stirred  by  the  conflicts  and 
exactions  of  a  moral  order,  brought  a  new  actuality 
close  to  her.  All  her  drama,  even  in  the  sordid  condi 
tions  of  Ware,  seemed  to  her,  as  she  looked  back  at  it, 
to  have  been  theoretic — the  drama  of  an  attitude  rather 
than  of  a  participation.  She  felt  that  for  the  first  time 
her  inner  barriers  were  broken  and  the  fibres  of  her 
resistances  dissolved,  and  that  with  the  end  of  her  con 
flict  she  had  passed  into  a  definable  connection  with 
existence. 

[181] 


ASCENT 

She  put  it  in  the  terms  of  conflict,  and  not  of  con 
viction.  For  weeks  she  had  been  increasingly  aware 
that  her  character  had  been  subjected  to  the  influence 
of  a  strong  determinant;  or,  as  she  seemed  to  hear 
Mr.  Lacy's  corrective  voice  reminding  her,  if  not  her 
character  at  least  her  own  view  of  her  character.  The 
threat  of  this  irruption  had  been  in  itself  a  stimulant. 
She  had  never  before  experienced  the  magnetism  of 
idea;  not  the  tart  pleasure  of  her  definitions  or  the 
gymnastic  quality  of  her  brilliancy,  but  of  a  force 
extraneous  to  herself  and  with  an  authority  outside 
her  personal  presuppositions.  In  her  immediate  recogni 
tion  of  the  power  of  Father  Ames's  weapons  and  the 
integrity  of  his  authority,  she  had  reversed  her  usual 
term  of  conquest  and  seen  the  immeasurable  oppor 
tunity  of  being  conquered.  It  must  be  a  surrender 
which  proceeded,  to  give  it  its  full  value,  bit  by  bit. 
She  had  measured  its  progress  by  the  slightest  signs. 
She  knew  that  the  tone  of  his  predominance  had  never 
varied,  as  their  meetings  became  more  constant.  It 
was  in  herself  that  she  had  felt  the  sudden  insecurity 
which  had  meant,  as  she  recognised,  the  approach  to 
a  final  issue. 

The  gathering  wave  of  her  uncertainties  had  never 
risen  higher  than  during  her  unexpected  moments  with 
him  that  afternoon.  Yet  her  baffled  sense  of  her 
incapacity  to  shake  him  had  never  been  less  deniable; 
and  she  had  descended  the  stairs  with  the  conviction 
that  any  question  of  her  conversion  was  a  madness. 
In  her  car,  as  she  drove  home,  she  had  even  composed 
the  brief  sharp  note  which  should  tell  him  that  her 
words  with  him  had  been  definitely  her  last.  It  was 
not  until  she  stood  in  her  hall  again  and  picked  up 

[182] 


ASCENT 

from  the  table  the  note  he  had  sent  her  earlier,  express 
ing  his  hope  that  she  would  go  to  see  Lady  Isabel 
Bourdas,  that  she  had  felt  the  arrest  of  a  hesitation. 
As  she  turned  the  phrases  over  and  over,  with  their 
easily  carried  allusions  to  a  deep  friendship  and  the 
personality  of  an  old  relation,  an  inexplicable  curiosity 
had  leapt  up  in  her.  It  was  the  last  impulse  for  which 
she  was,  at  the  moment,  prepared.  Her  moments  with 
Father  Ames  had  left  her  too  sore  for  the  stir  of  such 
an  interest;  but  something  unsatisfied  in  her  mind 
had  made  her  glance  at  her  watch  to  see  if  it  was  too 
late,  turn  back  to  the  car,  and  give  the  address  of  the 
hotel  to  her  chauffeur. 

When  she  found  herself  beside  Lady  Isabel,  and 
across  what  she  felt  to  be  the  careful  banality  of  their 
phrases,  she  had  been  able  to  define  this  curiosity. 
The  very  fact  of  Isabel's  presence,  the  width  of  her 
implications  and  the  inevitability  of  her  reserves,  had 
thrown  open  sudden  vistas  down  which  Olive's  rapid 
thoughts  travelled.  All  the  intricacies  of  the  inter 
dependence  between  her  and  Father  Ames  were  as 
apparent  as  all  its  ultimate  simplicities.  As  she  looked, 
from  her  seat  beside  Isabel,  over  to  the  hard  afternoon 
light  which  streamed  in  the  north  windows,  she  was 
dimly  divining  the  Ames  she  had  never  known.  The 
delicate  threads  which  bind  confessor  and  penitent  were 
stretched  before  her,  in  all  the  fineness  of  their  con 
struction  and  their  responsiveness  to  human  emotion. 
The  excitement  of  her  ignorance  had  never  before  so 
irritated  her.  She  felt  for  the  first  time  the  impera 
tive  necessity  to  have  a  hand  laid  firmly  on  her  personal 
assertiveness.  From  time  to  time  there  drifted  across 
the  increasingly  clear  landscape  of  her  thoughts  the 

[183] 


ASCENT 

remembrance  of  Mr.  Lacy's  old  phrases  concerning 
her  protean  quality  and  that  if  she  were  unchangeable 
it  was  because  she  so  readily  changed.  But  the  present 
moment  seemed  to  her  to  touch  so  vitally  her  inner 
sanctities  that  it  was  proof  enough  of  their  existence. 
Her  lips  had  set  with  determination;  and  as  she  held 
out  her  hand  to  Lady  Isabel  she  was  conscious  that 
her  decision  had  been  taken. 

She  saw  the  stars  brighten  to  white  and  the  dawn 
come  with  a  sudden  surprise.  The  hour  had  never 
had  any  reality  of  existence  for  her,  in  itself;  but 
while  the  familiar  room  grew  grey,  she  felt  the  extraor 
dinary  poignancy  of  the  re-emergence  of  life  and  the 
cold  verities  of  the  thin  light.  She  flung  herself  by 
her  bed  on  her  knees;  and  as  her  words  broke  from 
her — bits  of  Catholic  invocations  she  had  read,  a  line 
or  two  from  the  Episcopal  services  and  a  verse  of  a 
strident  Baptist  hymn,  the  only  approach  to  prayers 
which  she  knew, — it  struck  her  that  this  was  the  first 
time  she  had  ever  made  any  attempt  to  pray,  except 
for  momentary  supplications  to  be  delivered  from  the 
infliction  of  old  Norah's  talkativeness  or  Philip's 
presence;  and  the  strangeness  of  lifting  her  mind  from 
the  tangible  held  her,  for  a  moment,  motionless  and 
confused. 

As  she  fastened  her  dress  before  her  mirror  she 
realised  how  she  had  already  been  touched  by  her 
determination.  Her  shoulders  drooped  with  the  fatigue 
of  her  sleeplessness,  her  face  had  a  dull  pallor  and  her 
eyes  were  deeply  circled.  Something  made  her  glad, 
as  she  regarded  herself,  of  this  extinction  of  her  beauty; 
even  in  its  momentary  sacrifice,  she  felt  she  had 

[184] 


ASCENT 

attained  a  comprehension  of  Father  Ames's  standard 
of  what  either  gave  appearance  a  soul  or  turned  it 
into  a  vulgarism. 

The  streets,  as  she  slipped  out  of  the  house,  had  all 
the  silence  of  the  earliest  morning.  But  the  few  slink 
ing  figures  she  passed,  as  she  crossed  the  park  and 
entered  the  poorer  quarter,  struck  her,  through  their 
sordidness,  with  a  human  quality.  She  had  never 
speculated,  she  realised,  as  to  the  mechanics  of  any 
lives  outside  her  own ;  and  now  she  had  a  sudden  sense 
of  the  significance  of  the  hulking  men  and  the  occa 
sional  girls  with  too  adroit  eyes. 

A  woman  whom  she  had  not  seen  before  was  scrub 
bing  the  entry  as  she  went  up  the  steps  of  Father 
Ames's  house,  and  turned  to  look  at  her  with  a  half- 
awakened  resentment.  What  did  Olive  want,  anyway, 
she  asked?  If  it  was  the  priests,  they  weren't  there;  the 
younger  one  was  away  somewhere — he'd  left  in  the 
evening  with  a  bag;  and  the  older  one — the  English 
man — had  been  sent  for,  an  hour  before,  to  go  to  a 
dying  woman.  With  this  she  resumed  her  scrubbing, 
pouring  the  greyish  water  over  the  blotched  marble  and 
leaving  untouched  the  corners  clogged  with  dust,  as  if 
she  were  aware  of  the  hopelessness  of  her  task. 

"And  there's  no  use  in  taking  up  my  time,  neither," 
she  flung  over  her  shoulder,  as  she  proceeded. 

Olive  stared  at  her  for  a  moment,  with  her  thoughts 
revolving  around  the  strange  disarray,  at  this  un 
heard-of  hour — it  was  barely  half  past  six — of  custom 
and  of  authority. 

"Do  you  know  where  he's  gone,  the  English  priest? 
You  say  he  was  sent  for;  was  it  to  go  far?" 

The  woman  jerked  her  head  over  her  shoulder. 
[185] 


ASCENT 

"It's  down  the  block  here,  to  the  Healeys'.  The  same 
side,  a  few  doors  farther  on — number  431,  on  the 
ground  floor."  She  straightened  on  her  knees,  with  an 
abrupt  ferocity.  "And  who  are  you,  I'd  like  to  know, 
coming  at  such  a  time?" 

Olive  returned  her  look  steadily.  "I'm  one  of  Father 
Ames's  penitents;"  the  words  gave  her  a  light  flush,  as 
she  pronounced  them,  and  as  she  saw  the  immediacy 
with  which  the  woman's  face  changed. 

"Well,  it's  all  right,  then;  431,  and  the  ground  floor," 
and  she  became  reabsorbed  in  her  scrubbing. 

It  was  at  once  apparent,  in  the  entry  of  the  house 
further  down  the  street,  that  even  in  this  crowded 
environment  where  the  shocks  of  eventuality  must  pass 
so  obscurely,  more  than  the  usual  morning  occupations 
were  stirring.  The  door  of  the  ground  floor  flat  stood 
ajar;  and  as  Olive  slipped  across  the  threshold  she 
heard  a  voice  which  she  instantly  recognised  as  Father 
Ames's,  coming  from  what  was  evidently  the  front 
room  of  the  flat. 

Pressed  against  the  wall,  in  the  dark  hall-way,  she 
covered  her  face  with  her  hands  and  listened.  The 
words  began  gradually  to  pierce  her  strained  atten 
tion.  She  had  never  before  heard  the  Litany  of 
the  Dying.  Its  phrases,  in  their  sonorous  poignancy, 
broke  into  the  empty  spaces  of  her  mind;  and  as 
they  penetrated  her  they  seemed  to  her  to  spread 
Father  Ames's  scale  of  perpetuity  before  her.  She  saw 
for  the  first  time  his  view  of  the  universal  balance,  the 
brevity  of  existence  and  the  vastness  of  a  hereafter,  the 
instabilities  of  living  and  the  certitude  of  eternity,  and 
the  sand  and  water  which  these  huge  measurements 
made  of  the  present  moment. 

[186] 


ASCENT 

With  her  utmost  sense  of  urgency  she  tried  to  aban 
don  her  resistance  and  to  believe  herself  caught  up  in 
the  immense  movement  of  the  prayers.  Every  fibre 
of  her  mind  was  alive  with  the  desire  to  follow  her 
emotion;  but  from  the  open  door,  and  along  the  little 
passage,  there  seemed  to  creep  upon  her,  as  if  she 
saw  it,  a  terror  of  actuality.  The  flight  of  each  second 
took  her  more  bodily  and  inevitably  back  to  the  days 
of  her  grandfather's  death.  She  recovered  their 
briefest  details,  with  the  vividness  of  a  vision;  how  he 
had  lain,  how  he  had  looked — not  when  he  was  dead, 
for  that,  after  all,  had  had  the  finality  of  the  inexorable, 
but  when  his  last  spark  of  life  was  battling  against  the 
encroaching  indignity  of  dissolution.  The  words  beat 
now  against  her  ears  and  penetrated  no  farther.  All 
that  filled  her  mind,  until  she  had  forgotten  every 
circumstance  of  her  coming  and  of  Ames,  was  her 
certainty  that  because  of  some  physical  weakness,  by 
a  turn  of  accident  or  by  the  stupid  swerve  of  a  car 
in  the  street,  she  herself  must  ultimately  face  this 
unescapable  fact. 

The  revulsion  which  caught  her  was  so  bodily  that, 
with  a  vague  sense  that  she  must  not  lose  her  self- 
command,  she  turned  to  try  to  find,  along  the  dark 
wall,  the  outlet  of  the  door.  As  she  moved  forward  a 
threshold  at  the  farthest  end  of  the  hall  was  darkened 
for  an  instant  by  a  figure  which  crossed  it,  and  Father 
Ames  came  towards  her. 

She  put  out  her  hand  to  arrest  him,  with  her  back 
still  against  the  wall,  and  aware  that  her  unsteadiness 
shook  her  voice. 

"Father,  I  must  speak  to  you!  Stop — don't  you 
know  me?  It's  I,  Olive  Devon." 

[187] 


ASCENT 

He  wavered  and  paused. 

"No,  it's  not  possible!  Mrs.  Devon!  What  is  it? 
You  want  to  see  me?"  He  drew  his  hand  across  his 
eyes,  as  if  he  made  a  visible  effort  to  clear  his  mind. 
"Where  can  we  go  for  a  moment,  I  wonder?  There's  a 
little  room,  I  think,  across  the  hall.  Will  you  come 
this  way,  here?" 

She  followed  him  into  the  little  bedroom,  and  while 
he  drew  forward  the  single  chair  she  looked  around 
her.  The  room  was  filled  by  the  bed,  which  had  not 
been  slept  in,  by  a  rough  washing  stand  and  by  a 
chest  of  maple  drawers,  surmounted  by  countless 
ornate  photograph  frames  and  by  a  bright-blue  plaster 
Virgin.  The  window  was  so  close  to  the  wall  of  the 
adjacent  house  that  only  a  pallid  light  reached  the 
interior.  Olive  seated  herself  at  the  edge  of  the  bed 
and  motioned  Father  Ames  to  the  chair.  As  she  tried 
to  collect  herself,  in  her  sudden  confrontation  of  him, 
she  strove  to  fasten  her  attention  on  the  significance 
of  the  little  statue  rather  than  on  its  strident  colour 
and  not  to  notice  that  behind  its  head  there  hung  a 
brilliantly  yellow  calendar,  representing  a  goddess  of 
liberty  who  advertised  some  brand  of  beer. 

Her  words  in  the  corridor  had  broken  from  her  in 
her  haste;  but  she  saw,  with  a  sudden  astonishment, 
as  her  look  finally  rested  on  him,  that  her  question  had 
been  relevant.  He  scarcely  knew  her.  His  face  was 
still  absorbed  and  absent  and  his  eyes  clear  with  a 
mystery  of  initiation.  Olive's  glance  of  furtive  wonder 
deepened  to  a  stare  of  astonishment.  For  the  first  time 
an  approximation  of  the  elements  of  his  strength 
entered  her  mind.  She  felt  in  herself  some  dim  sense 
of  what  his  sensitiveness  must  mean  in  a  life  perpetually 

[188] 


ASCENT 

controlled,  and  of  his  passionate  participation  in  all  the 
acts  of  living. 

He  turned  to  her  with  an  evident  difficulty. 

"You  say  you  came  here  to  find  me?  There's 
nothing  wrong,  I  hope — no?  You  must  try  to  under 
stand,  Mrs.  Devon.  I  know  it  must  be  difficult  for 
anyone  who  believes  as  little  as  you  believe.  But  I've 
just  seen  a  woman  die;  an  ignorant  creature,  clinging  to 
life  and  to  her  children  and  her  husband,  and  yet 
sustained  by  that  incalculable  miracle  of  the  faith. 
No  matter  how  long  I  live,  it's  a  thing  I  shall  never 
see  without  an  immeasurable  humility  and  gratitude 
to  God,  Who,  when  everything  else  is  stripped  from 
us,  gives  us  that.  And  now — you  say  you  want  to  see 
me?" 

Olive's  breath  quickened.    "Yes,  Father." 

"For  what  reason?  Yesterday  afternoon,  I  remem 
ber" — he  seemed  to  readjust  his  mind  to  the  stringen 
cies  of  her  case — "you  were  very  much  adrift;  you 
were  deeply  unhappy." 

She  had  a  sudden  sense  of  the  abandonment  of  her 
resistance.  "Yes;  but  I'm  past  unhappiness  now;" 
she  slipped  to  her  knees  before  him;  "I'm  broken, 
Father.  I  came  to  tell  you  that  I've  surrendered, 
that  I'm  ready  to  become  a  Catholic." 

"Ah!"  said  Father  Ames  quickly.  She  felt,  with 
her  averted  eyes,  the  swift  intensity  of  his  look.  Above 
her  inclined  head  she  was  conscious  that  he  signed  her 
with  the  cross  and  blessed  her.  She  waited;  it  had 
half  occurred  to  her  that  he  would  stretch  out  his  hand 
to  help  her  rise;  but  when,  after  a  moment  or  two 
of  hesitation,  she  straightened  herself  and  resumed  her 
seat  on  the  bed,  what  instantly  struck  her  was  the 

[189] 


ASCENT 

change  in  his  attitude  to  an  assertiveness  completely 
strange  to  her. 

.  "You  must  be  very  grateful,"  he  said  instantly. 
"You  must  realise  the  great  privilege  which  has  come 
to  you.  When  did  you  feel  in  yourself  the  capacity  to 
take  this  step?" 

"Oh,  I've  felt  it  for  weeks,  Father;  you  must  know; 
only  since  yesterday,  it's  been  inevitable  and  irresis 
tible.  And  you  will  help  me — you  will  guide  me?" 

He  pursued  the  trend  of  his  thought.  "Yes — it  has 
been,  I  think,  inevitable.  And  we  can  only  feel  the 
profoundest  appreciation  of  the  mercies  of  God.  You 
are  sure?"  His  glance  fixed  her  fully.  "This  really 
reaches  your  inner  self?  You  really  are,  as  it's  called, 
converted?" 

"Yes," — she  drew  a  deepened  breath — "I'm  really 
sure." 

"It  will  not,  you  know,  be  an  easy  way.  Ah,  you 
won  t  have  the  small  frictions  which  come  to  most 
converts,  for  John's  generosity  is  perfect.  But  you'll 
naturally  have  to  hold  on  to  new  things  and  cancel 
old  ones;  and  that  may  perhaps  mean  a  struggle  with 
yourself.  You're  ready  for  that?  It's  much  harder, 
you  see" — his  smile  just  touched  his  lips — "to  be 
faithful  to  an  affirmation  than  to  a  negation,  to  a  belief 
than  to  a  disbelief — to  a  faith  than  to  one's  self!" 

"Yes,  Father;  I  can  do  anything,  if  you'll  teach  me." 

"We  must  see  about  your  instruction  at  once. 
There's  Father  Norton,  at  the  Paulists — a  man  of  tact 
and  penetration,  and  accustomed  to  the  care  of  young 
Catholics  .  .  ."he  glanced  at  his  watch.  "I  must  go 
back  to  these  poor  people;  and  you,  my  child,  must 
go  around  to  the  Church,  to  the  eight  o'clock  mass. 

[190] 


ASCENT 

Later  in  the  day  I  shall  send  you  a  word  of  counsel, 
— probably  by  Father  Norton,  if  he's  free.  I'll  find  a 
chance  to  speak  to  him." 

"But  can't  I  have  my  first  instruction" — she  hesi 
tated  now — "from  you?"  Her  eyes  clung  to  his. 
"After  all,  Father,  whether  you  grant  it  or  not,  it's  you 
to  whom  I  owe  it  all." 

"You  owe  it  all,  as  you  put  it,"  said  Father  Ames 
easily,  "to  God.  Ah,  Mrs.  Devon,  you  have  now  indeed 
everything  in  the  world.  And  what  you'll  have  to 
construct  with !" 

She  bent  her  head,  without  speaking,  and  Father 
Ames  rose. 

"Your  life  until  now  has  been  accidental;  it  has 
lacked  the  ritual  of  a  purpose.  But  now  you  will 
understand.  You  will  measure  even  the  simple  facts 
like  those" — he  pointed — "in  the  next  room  there; 
and  they  take  the  widest  of  comprehension." 

"Yes,  Father,  I  know." 

'"I  need  not  assure  you  that  I  am  unutterably  thank 
ful  and  infinitely  rejoiced;"  he  half  turned  to  the  door; 
"yes,  later  in  the  day  I  shall  send  you  a  word  of  advice. 
Put  all  your  confidence  in  Father  Norton  and  tell  him 
all  your  difficulties.  He  can  solve  them  for  you" — he 
arrested  her  interruption — "no,  a  thousand  times  better 
than  I.  I,  you  see,  have  no  experience  with  the  soul 
which  has  had  the  privilege  of  your  illumination,  and 
he  has." 

"But  I  need  you;  I  need  the  things  only  you  can 
give  me!"  Her  words  broke  out  before  she  could 
shape  them  to  anything  better. 

"You  need  something  far  beyond  my  gift  to  give; 
all  I  am  worthy  to  offer  is  my  prayers,  and  those  are 

[191] 


ASCENT 

yours.  No — remember!  Your  actions  now" — she 
had  risen  and  they  confronted  each  other,  in  the  dim 
light — "are  the  immediate  symbols  of  your  soul, — since 
you  admit  you  have  a  soul!  There's  the  closest  sort 
of  continuity  between  the  two.  Where  before  you've 
done  what  you  pleased,  it's  been  because  there's  been 
no  true  development  in  you,  but  only  your  instinct 
to  control  you.  Now  all  that  is  changed.  Remember 
that  in  everything  you  say  and  do.  Your  life  must  be 
an  effort  to  manifest  your  faith.  And" — he  touched 
her  hand  lightly — "be  worthy  of  it." 

In  the  pressure  of  her  feeling  and  under  the  burden 
of  her  fatigue,  the  little  room  for  a  moment  swam 
around  her.  All  she  could  definitely  outline  in  her 
mind  was  a  vagrant  recollection,  which  persisted  in 
wandering  through  her  tossed  thoughts,  of  her  grand 
father's  habitual  definition  of  the  distorted  suscepti 
bilities  of  enthusiasts. 

The  energy  in  Father  Ames's  voice  strengthened. 

"I  can  only  repeat  that  my  thankfulness  has  no 
bounds.  It  has  seemed  to  me  too  sad,  you  know," 
his  smile  now  had  a  peculiar  beneficence,  "that  a 
person  so  extraordinary  as  you  should  be  so  little 
great!" 

Olive's  head  lifted,  with  a  touch  of  her  habitual 
defiance.  "And  now  you  expect  so  much  of  me?" 

"Everything!"  he  said  briefly.  He  bent  to  pick  up 
his  breviary,  and  a  second  later  he  passed  out  of  the 
door.  She  hesitated.  The  weariness  singing  in  her 
ears  warned  her  that  she  had  better  go.  A  sense  of  the 
relaxation  of  achievement  and  arrival  penetrated  her. 
There  was  a  stir  down  the  hallway,  and  she  could  hear 
a  clatter  in  the  kitchen  which  meant  the  preparation 

[192] 


ASCENT 

of  breakfast.  A  drifting  odour  of  stale  cabbage  came 
through  the  open  window,  and  she  raised  her  handker 
chief  to  her  nose;  yet  before  she  turned  she  looked 
once  more  around  her,  with  the  instinct  that  she  must 
impress  on  her  mind  the  setting  of  so  contradictory  a 
scene. 


XV 

FATHER  AMES'S  telephone  message  had  come 
to  Devon  while  he  was  at  dinner.  He  had  heard 
it  without  a  definite  surprise,  except  at  the  fact 
that  his  own  vague  presentiment  had  been  fulfilled. 
When,  at  the  end  of  June,  Ames  had  suddenly  been 
called  to  Michigan,  Devon  had  bade  him  good-bye 
with  his  habitual  impression  that  he  was  under  the 
direction  of  orders  whose  untraceable  requirements  of 
so  highly  delicate  a  mind  must  always  inspire  a  sense 
of  too  summary  an  authority  laid  upon  too  fine  an 
instrument.  He  happened  to  see  him  off,  on  this 
occasion,  from  the  station,  and  in  the  jostle  of  the 
crowd  he  had  said  as  much  to  him;  and  he  remembered 
vividly  the  amused  significance  of  the  look  with  which 
Ames  had  replied. 

"You  see  only  a  police  method,  don't  you?  The 
imposition  of  a  system  of  morality?  And  what  is  the 
use  of  any  life  without  a  system  of  morality,  I'd  like 
to  know?  What's  the  use  of  a  morality,  without  a 
system?  What  good  is  even  your  morality,  good  as  it 
is,  without  one?  Just  as  any  fact  is  useless  in  itself, 
unless  it's  been  tempered  and  composed  by  thought, 
so  your  goodness,  my  dear  John,  needs  a  code.  You 
have  a  magnificent  morality,  but  no  God."  The 
sharply  drawn  lines  of  his  face  had  accentuated  them 
selves.  "But  there  it  is!  Je  n'ai  pas  su  me  simplifter 
• — and  you  have!  You  are  wonderful,  you  know,  and 
I'm  always  your  devoted  friend!"  .  .  . 

He  had  disappeared  in  the  press  of  people,  leaving 


ASCENT 

Devon  with  the  clearest  impression  he  had  ever  had  of 
all  that  underlay  not  only  his  omissions  but  his  com 
plete  negation  of  even  a  past,  in  the  completeness  of 
his  negation  of  any  personal  existence.  Devon  had 
guessed,  years  before,  that  the  extreme  compression 
of  all  his  force  into  one  dedication  of  activity  was  no 
less  than  the  modelling  of  his  actual  being;  that  where 
most  men  denied  and  repressed,  he  had  long  since 
struck  not  at  the  manifestation  but  the  root,  and  that 
clear  as  his  action  was,  his  inner  action  had  the  clarity 
of  a  perfection.  But  in  the  light  implications  of  his 
face,  Devon  had  seemed  suddenly  to  see  a  door  stand 
ajar  and  to  have  a  rapid  flash  of  vision  of  the  world 
beyond  it.  He  felt  the  vague  presence  of  the  drama 
in  a  life  without  drama  and  the  stir  of  accidents,  not 
of  human  derivation — and  heaven  knew,  he  thought, 
Ames's  sympathy  struck  to  the  fibres  of  human  ques 
tions — but  of  the  deeper  workings  of  an  inner  mind. 
So  ceaseless  a  search  for  the  manifestations  of  a  God 
seemed  to  him,  suddenly,  the  most  poignant  feeling, 
as  actual  feeling,  that  his  imagination  could  picture; 
and  as  he  turned  out  of  the  pushing  crowd  in  the 
station,  he  had  thought  of  nothing  so  much  as  of  St. 
Augustine's  words,  "Where  there  shineth  unto  my  soul 
a  light  which  space  cannot  contain"  .  .  . 

His  suspicion  of  some  change  in  this  world  in  which 
only  the  great  changes  were  important  had  made  him 
half  await  a  sudden  turn  in  Ames's  action,  during  the 
summer  months.  The  message  just  brought  to  him  had 
said  that  Father  Ames  had  unexpectedly  reached  New 
York  that  same  afternoon,  because  of  an  unforeseen 
alteration  in  his  movements.  Could  Devon  go  to  his 
rooms  that  evening,  after  dinner?  and  would  he  make, 

[i9S] 


ASCENT 

to  this  end,  every  effort,  since  the  extreme  uncertainty 
of  Ames's  plans  made  it,  for  the  moment,  his  last  posi 
tively  free  time? 

The  words,  even  as  they  were  transmitted  through 
a  servant,  had  an  odd  touch  of  finality;  and  sinking 
back  in  his  chair,  with  his  scarcely  touched  dinner 
before  him,  Devon  had  let  his  speculation  people  the 
hot,  empty  room,  whose  windows  stood  open  to  the 
oppressive  September  night.  It  had  instantly  surprised 
him  that  Ames  should  not  have  offered  to  come  to  him, 
to  the  cool  little  library  where  he  had  so  often  written 
in  the  spring  and  whose  privacy  he  knew;  yet  had  he, 
after  all,  not  somewhat  evaded  that  hospitality  and 
been  with  them  less  frequently  in  the  days  immediately 
preceding  his  departure  for  the  west?  Devon  tried  to 
reconsider  it.  But  the  thought  merged  too  instantly 
in  a  closer  thought;  and  while  he  poured  out  his  coffee 
and  lit  his  cigar,  his  mind  slipped  back  into  its  constant 
preoccupation. 

From  the  moment  Olive  had  told  him  of  her 
impending  motherhood,  he  had  been  aware  that  a 
change  in  values  had  come  to  his  universe.  If  he  had 
always  more  or  less  and  inevitably  expected  such  a 
sentiment  to  touch  him  deeply,  he  was  none  the  less 
surprised  at  the  strength  in  its  vivacity.  He  found  that 
his  hopes  for  a  child  had  gathered  some  of  the  force  of 
the  sense  of  frustration  which  had  run  through  the 
satiric  days  of  his  boyhood.  They  had  never  perhaps 
asssumed  a  particular  definiteness,  but  he  had  none 
the  less  had  a  constant  consciousness  that  there  was 
to  be  some  award,  in  the  eventualities  of  chance,  for 
the  suppression  of  his  capacities  of  affection.  He 
didn't  know,  and  still  less  cared,  how  most  men  felt 

[196] 


ASCENT 

about  it;  but  when  his  wish  had  become  actuality, 
what  he  had  first  thought  of,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was 
not  so  much  that  his  future  had  suddenly  extended  in 
a  new  commitment,  but  that  the  child  would  bear  in 
itself  so  much  of  Olive.  His  constant  sense  of  being 
bound,  in  his  feeling  for  her,  to  something  ultimate 
had  never  been  so  strong  as  when  he  found  that  it 
pervaded  the  possibilities  of  this  new  relation. 

The  suddenly  different  element  in  their  future  had 
already  woven  differences  into  their  tie.  Devon  vividly 
remembered  when  she  had  told  him  of  its  imminence; 
not  in  the  current  way,  with  either  emotion  or  with 
regret,  and  with  no  more  revolt  at  her  already  per 
sistent  discomfort  than  with  what  she  called  a  senti 
mental  exaggeration  of  the  situation.  "I  haven't  the 
classic  attitude,  I  know,"  she  had  said,  with  her  dryest 
conciseness, — "and  I  suppose  you  expect  me  to  have! 
I  am  sure  it  will  be  a  great  experience  and  I  am  equally 
sure  it  will  interest  and  instruct  me;  and  that's  what 
I'm  out  for,  you  know !  It  appears  a  woman's  not  alive, 
physically  or  mentally,  unless  she's  had  a  child.  I've 
never  yet  been  afraid  of  difficulties,  and  I'm  not  afraid 
of  them  now.  I'm  far  more  oppressed  by  the  terrible 
triteness  of  view  about  it.  I've  had  a  wonderful  letter 
from  father.  Do  you  know  what  it  most  resembles? — 
the  letter  I've  also  had  from  your  mother  I  She's  so 
overflowing  with  the  poetry  of  it  that  she's  almost  cut 
short  her  cure  in  the  south.  Fate  is  delicious — to  have 
suddenly  made  those  two  alike;  and  I  assure  you  that, 
except  for  the  variations  of  their  note  paper,  their 
banality's  undistinguishable !  But  you,  John — "  she 
had  abruptly  broken  off  and  waited  for  his  reply,  with 
an  attention  rare  in  her. 

[i97l 


ASCENT 

Devon  had  smiled.  "Are  you  expecting  of  me  the 
same  banality?  Well,  you'll  get  it.  Motherhood's  a 
marvel  and  a  miracle." 

"And  you've  so  wanted  a  child?" 

"Yes,  of  course  I  have." 

"Yet  there's  something  more?" 

He  had  laid  his  hands,  without  speaking,  on  her 
shoulders.  The  measure  of  his  feeling  was  his  fear  to 
risk  it  in  words.  He  couldn't  have  her  analyse  it  anew. 
The  immense  fact  that  her  youth,  in  its  aggressive  inde 
pendence,  was  subjected  to  an  inexorable  law,  had 
unnerved  him  more  than  the  thought  of  its  fruition. 
The  tissue  of  gentleness  which  enclosed  her  in  his 
thought  seemed  to  him  to  wrap  her  round  like  veils 
of  light,  to  lay  every  beat  of  his  separate  vitality  under 
her  feet  and  to  reflect  every  motion  of  her  hands  in  a 
correspondent  stir  in  his  blood. 

His  feeling  had  only  been  enriched  by  this  silence, 
and  his  silence  had  deepened  as  each  week  of  the 
summer  passed.  He  saw  her  always,  now,  as  his  vision 
of  her  since  June  had  perpetually  shaped  itself — lying 
inertly  on  her  sofa,  with  her  eyes  darker  than  ever 
and  her  face  grey.  Whether  he  sat  beside  her  or 
read  to  her  through  a  sleepless  night  or  helped  her  nurse 
or  her  maid  in  some  small  ministration  for  her  com 
fort,  the  tightening  of  his  apprehension  was  the  same. 
He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  brought  her  face  to  face 
with  an  actuality  which  she  could  not  deny,  in  spite 
of  the  high-handed  attitude  with  which  she  accepted 
it.  Whatever  her  revolt  or  her  resistance  had  been,  it 
was  pent  up  behind  her  constantly  compressed  lips. 
He  stared  before  him,  across  the  bare  table  at  which, 
for  almost  four  months,  he  had  had  his  silent  meals, 

[198] 


ASCENT 

with  the  lights  striking  in  through  the  opened  windows 
from  the  noisy  night  which  had  none  of  the  mystery 
of  darkness.  Her  touch  on  the  chords  of  his  sensi 
bility  had  never  seemed  closer;  and  he  asked  himself, 
with  a  sudden  access  of  curiosity,  what  the  miracle  of 
feeling  after  all  was.  Why  was  it  the  best  chance  life 
could  hold,  that  one  should  so  penetrate  and  be  pene 
trated;  that  one  should  be  dedicated  to  a  slavery,  to 
the  sacrifice  of  one's  closest  privacies  to  the  action 
of  another  entity?  What  was  it  that  made  the  miracle, 
that  struck  a  cry  out  of  silence,  that  measured  the 
moments  and  cancelled  the  hours,  and  broke  one 
while  it  saved  one?  and  did  it  in  reality  exist,  apart 
from  his  unbelievable  sensitiveness  to  it?  He  saw  his 
hands  clasped  on  the  table  in  front  of  him,  and  he 
recalled  himself,  with  his  touch  of  dry  amusement 
at  his  own  exaggeration,  and  rose.  Yet  he  caught 
himself  telling  the  servant  who  opened  the  door  for 
him  to  say  to  Olive's  maid  that  he  was  going  out  for 
an  hour  or  two  and  shouldn't  see  her  again  that  night. 
He  could  not  shake  off  the  impression  that,  at  the 
moment,  his  committal  to  her,  in  some  inexplicable  way, 
transcended  his  need  of  her  actual  presence. 

The  sudden  turn  of  Father  Ames's  head,  away 
from  his  desk  and  over  his  shoulder,  and  his  sharp 
movement,  as  he  rose,  gave  Devon  an  instant  sense 
that  there  was  an  even  more  definite  purpose  than 
he  divined,  behind  the  summons  he  had  received. 

"My  dear  John!—  "  he  held  Devon's  arm  closely; 
"but  why  should  I  thank  you  for  coming?  Aren't 
you  always  a  little  beyond  my  thanks?  There — can 
you  be  comfortable?  Heavens,  what  heat!  And  the 


ASCENT 

noise,  and  the  dust!"  He  drew  forward  a  chair  to  the 
open  window  nearest  the  writing  table.  "You've  a 
cigar  to  console  you?  and  you  won't  mind  just  this 
one  light?  There  are  still  mosquitoes,  I  see;  I'd  never 
expected  to  see  the  worst  of  the  climate  in  Sep 
tember  ...  1" 

Devon  nodded.  Looking  behind  him  into  the 
darkened  room,  he  was  struck  by  the  sense  of  a 
change  in  it.  Its  shadows  had  curiously  disappeared. 
It  was  pervaded  by  a  certain  hardness,  and  all  he 
could  be  sure  of  defining  were  the  letters  sorted  on  the 
desk  and  the  pile  of  books  on  the  centre  table.  As 
he  turned  back  to  Ames,  he  had  the  odd  notion  that 
in  his  face,  too,  there  was  a  sudden  lack  of  shadows. 
The  determined  openness  of  his  look  reminded  Devon 
of  nothing  so  much  as  the  exposure  of  some  delicate 
surface  to  the  harshest  light,  and  his  mouth  was  set 
in  its  firmest  lines. 

"You  look,"  Devon  put  it  with  his  habitual  brevity, 
"as  if  you've  had  rather  a  pull  of  it,  out  in  Michi 
gan." 

Father  Ames  laughed.  "My  dear  fellow,  the  places 
I've  been  would  be  shocked  to  think  they  weren't  all 
of  life,  but — alas! — they  aren't!  It  takes  more  than 
three  mad  months  of  hurry  and  heat  to  undermine  one, 
you  know;  though  I  admit  it's  had  its  share!  The 
crowds,  my  dear  John,  and  the  crowded  minds,  without 
a  trace  of  population!  They're  so  kind,  and  so  colos- 
sally  childish.  I've  seen  everything,  from  nuns  who 
ought  to  have  been  running  department  stores,  to 
millionaires  who  believed  in  their  mission  to  reform 
China." 

"It's  been  another  experience,  then?" 
[200] 


ASCENT 

"I  put  my  experiences,  you  know,"  his  smile  glanced 
across  his  face,  "as  lessons.  It's  been  a  lesson,  yes, 
added  to  all  the  other  lessons.  It's  over,  I'm  thank 
ful  to  say,  it's  done;  now  I'm  on  the  threshold  of  the 
next  thing." 

Devon  smiled,  in  his  turn.  "Are  you  ever  away  from 
that  threshold?" 

"By  my  vows  and  my  calling — no."  His  familiar 
impatience,  which,  as  Devon  reflected,  was  characteris 
tically  with  himself,  just  gleamed.  "Yet  isn't  that  law 
almost  too  difficult  a  one  which  expects  some  of  us  to  be 
in  perpetual  aggression — which  takes  us  from  the  inner 
thresholds  so  that  we  may  always  stand  ready  at  the 
outer?  You  see,  there's  where  the  world  really  divides 
us,  you  and  me,  just  as  men!  I'm  pledged  to  be  con 
stantly  exposing  my  deepest  processes,  I'm  committed 
to  live  this  tenuous,  invisible  thing  called  faith;  and 
you  .  .  ." 

Devon's  rare  colour  had  slowly  risen.  It  had  needed 
no  more  than  Father  Ames's  tone  to  place  their  talk 
on  terms  more  personal  than  any  which  they  had  yet 
touched.  Often  enough,  at  Oxford,  they  had  discussed 
the  metaphysics  of  belief,  Ames  always  with  an  even 
more  open  vocabulary  of  treatment  than  his  companion, 
since  he  had  the  easy  fluency  of  his  impersonality.  But 
Devon's  imagination  had  at  once  divined  that  to-night 
he  was  not  an  instance  of  his  obedience  to  his  hierarchy 
nor  a  symbol  of  renunciation,  but  an  individual  whose 
private  thought  was  for  the  hour  open.  His  own 
reserve  softened  as  he  took  up  the  broken  phrase,  with 
an  impulse  whose  extent  he  scarcely  realised  until  he 
had  pronounced  the  words. 

"Well,  I'm  committed,  too;  only  you're  committed 

[201] 


ASCENT 

to  a  faith  in  a  deity,  and  I'm  committed  to  a  faith 
in  a  personality !" 

Father  Ames's  question  was  instant.  "You  mean 
your  wife?" 

Devon's  reticence  seemed  for  a  second  to  reclaim 
him;  then  he  pursued.  "Sometimes  when  you  talk  of 
one's  need  of  a  God,  and  all  that,  I  wonder  no  less  than 
you  must  have  wondered,  what  this  insistent  need  of 
faith  is — above  all,  what  it  is  for  those  of  us  who 
don't  see  any  one  moral  principle,  like  God,  and  who  yet 
have  an  absolute  need  to  cling  to  something  outside 
themselves,  which  they  can  slave  for  and  serve."  He 
struck  the  ash  from  his  cigar.  "Don't  misunderstand 
me!  I've  no  illusions  about  my  situation — that  it's 
exalted  or  flawless,  or  even,  as  situations  go,  extraor 
dinary.  You  used  the  word  committed.  There  it  is!" 
He  rose  abruptly  and  stared  for  a  moment  out  of  the 
window,  with  his  eyes  set  on  the  effulgent  city  and 
the  stars  which  had,  in  the  softness  of  a  damp  night, 
some  of  the  tremulousness  of  golden  flowers.  As  he 
turned  back  he  had  again  a  faint  smile.  "Whatever 
you'd  call  my  faith,  I'm  bound  to  it,  and  I've  passed 
my  final  threshold." 

Father  Ames's  silence  seemed  to  prolong  and  deepen 
the  silence  which  had  lain  between  each  of  Devon's 
words.  His  eyes,  at  first,  had  a  flash  of  gratitude.  His 
sensitiveness,  always  more  composed  and  expressed 
than  Devon's,  had  evidently  seen  more  clearly  than 
Devon  himself  this  first  direct  sacrifice  of  their  reserves 
and  had  apprehended  it  as  a  generosity  that  Devon 
made  it.  But  his  look,  raised  as  it  was,  stiffened  after 
a  moment  or  two  in  the  lines  of  a  resolve. 

"Well,  my  dear  fellow,  and  I've  passed  mine."  He 
[202] 


ASCENT 

shook  his  head.  "No,  I  hadn't  already  passed  it  when 
I  became  a  priest!  And  I've  been  that,  in  soul  and 
in  heart,  ever  since  I  had  a  mind  to  think  with.  This 
is  different.  It's  the  end  of  my  road,  the  termination 
of  my  service,  and  the  last  move  of  my  soul.  I  asked 
you  to  come  to-night  to  tell  you  that  I'd  to-day  written 
to  my  Bishop  and  to  the  Superior,  and  that  on  my 
return  to  England — and  that's  to  be  immediate — I 
enter  the  Carmelites." 

Devon  had  moved  from  the  window  with  the  slow 
ness  which  he  always  opposed  to  Father  Ames's 
rapidity  of  gesture.  His  hand  fell  on  Ames's  shoulder 
and  he  stood,  for  an  instant,  looking  down  at  him 
before  he  dropped  into  his  chair. 

"It's  so  blessedly  like  you,  John,  to  say  nothing 
when  everyone  else  has  said — and  will  say — so  des 
perately  much!  But  what  is  there  to  say,  when  one's 
passed  beyond  reasons  and  arguments,  claims  and 
obligations?  For  months — or  perhaps  for  years — it's 
been  in  me;  now,  I'm  clear.  The  tumult's  done  with. 
I've  had  hot  opposition  and  cold  opposition;  from 
my  brother  the  Archbishop,  even  from  Rome.  But 
when  you're  sure  as  I'm  sure—  He  let  his  look  close 
his  sentence. 

"We  shall  never  see  you,  I  suppose?"  Devon  put 
his  question  cursorily. 

"In  the  ordinary  course  of  things,  never.  Oh,  in 
the  extraordinary  circumstance,  perhaps;  but  what 
one  is  after  all  vowed  to  is  one's  perpetuity,  to  a  con 
secration  of  one's  every  thought  to  travelling  that  road 
we  call  prayer,  which  stretches  between  man  and  the 
ultimate  sources  of  his  strength." 

Devon  smiled.  "Well,  you  won't  change!  You'll 
[203] 


ASCENT 

pray  as  well,  as  fervently  and  as  brilliantly,  as  you've 
lectured  and  written;  and  what  right  has  one,  after 
all,  to  say  you're  wrong?"  His  eyes  again  shifted. 
"Only  one  doesn't  much  like  such  partings!" 

"No, — I  know!  That,  you  now  see,  was  the  reason 
I  sent  for  you."  Father  Ames  paused.  "That,  and 
something  more."  He  raised  his  head,  so  that  his 
face  met  the  light  more  clearly.  "I  wanted  to  tell 
you,  too,  just  how  much,  in  my  decision,  I  indirectly 
owe  to  your  wife." 

Devon  turned  in  his  chair.  "To  Olive?"  he 
repeated. 

"I  should  like  you  to  understand,"  Father  Ames 
continued,  with  his  sharp  incision,  "because  you're 
the  only  person  I  know  fine  enough  to  understand 
what  has  been  so  tortuous  a  situation.  You  know  what 
my  life  has  been  .  .  .  the  rush  and  the  tear  of  it, 
the  chances  I've  had  to  serve — and  which  I've  so 
badly  used  —  the  constant  play  of  mind  in  which 
I've  had  to  exist.  It  was  my  duty  to  fight  along  as  I 
did;  that's  obvious.  But  it  was  a  situation  every  inch 
of  which  was  a  pitfall.  There  was  every  conceivable 
danger  in  my  path;  too  superficial  a  grip,  too  easy 
conquests,  too  rapid  thought.  Because  people  so 
readily  listened  to  me,  the  risk  was  that  I  shouldn't 
test  myself.  Because  I  was  told  to  do  the  spectacular 
thing,  the  risk  was  that  I'd  forget  the  foundations  of 
it.  It  was  all  very  amazing.  When  I  was  twenty  my 
superiors  told  me  I  had  these  weapons  to  use, 
and  I  ceased  to  exist  except  in  their  use.  That  you 
know!" 

He  spoke  more  rapidly  than  usual,  but  Devon 
instinctively  felt  that  his  words  had  never,  before  his 

[204] 


ASCENT 

most  critical  audiences,  been  more  actually  expressive 
of  what  was  in  his  mind. 

"In  other  words,  it  just  so  happened  that  when  your 
wife  crossed  my  path — amongst  all  the  other  people 
who  crossed  my  path — she  called  into  a  special  play 
in  me  the  methods  of  attack  I'd  been  developing  all 
these  years.  I'd  used  them  enough,  heaven  knows, 
with  this  problem  or  with  that,  and  sometimes  with  a 
convert;  but  she  needed  them  all,  and  all  at  once.  The 
very  ease  with  which  I  dealt  with  her  was  a  revelation 
to  me  that  my  ease  was  too  sure.  Just  because  one 
needs  the  best  of  one's  brain,  with  her,  she  was  a 
constant  illustration  to  me  of  how  far  along  the  road 
I'd  travelled.  I  did  it  well,  John — but  I  did  it  too 
well!  It's  a  thing  holier  men  than  I  have  done  with 
half  my  education  and  training;  and  I  began  to  say  to 
myself — what  after  all  is  this  life,  so  much  of  the 
technique  of  which  I've  mastered  and  the  mystery  of 
which  I  never  touch?" 

He  drew  his  brows  together.  "Don't  misinterpret 
what  I  say.  Your  wife  herself  had  her  part  in  it;  it 
wasn't  only  a  case  of  intellectual  reaction.  It  wasn't 
only  the  illustration  of  her  needs  but  the  illustration  of 
her  personality,  which  was  perfect  in  its  use  as  a 
lesson  for  me.  You  know — I  told  you  at  the  time 
she  was  received  into  the  Church — how  careful  I  had 
been  not  to  influence  her  unduly;  but  I'd  had  to  see 
her  let  me  influence  her  unduly,  whether  I  would  or  no. 
She  was  incredibly  rapid  in  her  reaction,  and  incredibly 
adrift;  and  there  wasn't  an  occasion  when  I  hadn't 
to  keep  her  turned  to  the  real  issues  .  .  ." 

Devon  laid  his  hand,  for  a  quick  instant,  on  the 
hand  with  which  Ames  still  grasped  his  arm. 

[205] 


ASCENT 

"Well,  there  it  was.  It's  a  great  battle,  the  battle 
for  a  soul  or  the  battle  for  an  idea;  and  one's  the  other 
made  human.  But  it  happened  to  be  the  symbolism  of 
your  wife's  struggle  which  showed  me  I  was  done  with 
it.  Oh,  I  shall  miss  it;  it  was  wonderfully  stimulating 
to  fight  for  an  imposition,  or  a  definition,  or  a  moral, 
as  I  fought.  Only,  for  the  time  that's  left  me,  I  must 
learn  to  pray!" 

Devon  still  maintained  his  silence,  as  if  all  his 
thought  were  turning  to  and  fro  between  Father  Ames's 
sentences,  with  the  quantity  of  their  implications  and 
the  bare  simplicity  of  their  conclusions.  He  had  the 
persistent  sense,  in  the  back  of  his  mind,  that  nothing 
had  ever  mattered  to  him  more  than  this  impending 
relegation  of  a  living  person  to  inanition.  He  pulled 
himself  together,  with  an  abrupt  effort,  as  Ames  again 
spoke,  with  his  voice  charged  now  with  a  different 
energy. 

"And  now,  my  dear  fellow,  before  I'm  off,  is  there 
nothing  I  can  do  for  you,  or  for  Mrs.  Devon  either? 
Your  child — it's  to  be  born  in  the  winter?" 

Devon  could  feel  the  effort  of  the  reversion  of  his 
attention,  as  if  he  resumed  again  a  physical  burden. 
"Yes — February.  Olive's  been  very  poorly,  you  know; 
perhaps  she's  written  you?  No?  Well,  she  is  a  dumb 
creature  when  she's  in  pain,  and  she's  been  dumb 
enough,  since  spring.  I'd  hoped  that  perhaps  you  .  .  ." 

"Ah,  she'll  have  better  guidance  than  I  could  ever 
have  given  her.  Father  Norton,  of  the  Paulists,  has 
been  her  director,  hasn't  he?" 

"Yes;  yet  since  she  was  received  into  the  Church,  in 
July,  she's  seemed  to  me  to  get  from  him  extraor 
dinarily  little.  Oh,  it's  not  been  his  fault;  that's  ob- 

[206] 


ASCENT 

vious.  I  know  he's  come  often,  since  she  wasn't  well 
enough  to  do  anything  but  drive;  but  he's  frequently 
talked  more  to  me  than  to  her.  At  first  she  seemed 
eager  to  see  him — just  at  the  time,  you  know,  of  your 
leaving  .  .  ."  He  broke  off.  "You  understand  Olive 
well,  because  your  imagination  touches  her.  You 
mustn't  blame  Father  Norton;  in  a  sense,  you  mustn't 
blame  her.  She's  inherited  from  her  extraordinary  old 
grandfather  that  she's  always  caustic  to  the  person  to 
whom  she's  too  much  accustomed.  There  you  are!" 

Father  Ames  thought  for  a  second.  "And  the 
Church  itself — the  thing  that's  all  of  Father  Norton,  or 
me,  or  any  of  us?  Hasn't  she  appeared  to  grow  in 
her  faith?  No,  John — it's  seemed  to  me,  frankly 
speaking,  of  a  rare  beauty  that  her  belief  in  God 
should  come  to  her  just  as  she  was  about  to  be  a 
mother;  that  in  the  construction  of  her  child  she  is  also 
constructing  a  great  spiritual  apprehension.  .  .  ."  He 
stopped,  with  his  eyes  on  Devon's  smile.  Its  sophis 
tication  seemed  to  hold  for  a  moment  all  his  thought. 
"Ah,  but  it  is  you  who  know  everything  about  it  all, 
and  I  who  know  nothing!" 

Devon  did  not  reply.  The  quality  of  initiation  in 
his  face  deepened  and  something  of  the  pressure  of 
the  past  months  touched  his  features.  His  habitual 
inexpressiveness  could  not  cloak  it,  and  for  the  space 
of  a  moment  or  two,  he  was  conscious  that  Father 
Ames  must  be  seeing  the  visible  exposition  of  the  clash 
of  the  forces  of  his  feeling  with  the  difficult  terms 
of  living. 

"Don't  you  see,"  he  searched  for  the  word,  "that 
Olive's  not  yet  real?" 

Father  Ames's  face  lit  with  animation.  "Then  the 
[207] 


ASCENT 

Church  will  create  her — you'll  see!"  and  as  Devon 
mutely  shook  his  head,  he  took  up  the  negation.  "No, 
you  think  not?  But — my  dear  boy,  forgive  me — no 
feeling  will  save  her!" 

"No;  she's  not  a  woman  to  be  saved  by  feeling.  All 
I  know,"  his  shoulders  rose  and  fell,  "is  my  instinct  to 
hold  on." 

"You're  wonderful — no,  not  you,  but  your  gen 
erosity!  Haven't  I  always  said  it?"  He  rose,  with 
his  hand  on  Devon's  shoulder.  "Leave  her  to  God. 
He  chooses  the  most  unrecognisable  ways  ...  I 
shall  be  praying  for  you  both.  Tell  her  so,  from  me, 
will  you?  And  now  it's  nearly  eleven,  and  at  mid 
night  my  train  leaves.  I  go,  you  see,  to  Montreal  and 
take  a  boat  there  to-morrow.  .  .  ." 

Devon  slowly  pushed  back  his  chair.  His  pause 
seemed  again  to  measure  the  facts.  "And  shan't  one 
ever  hear  of  you — or  from  you?" 

"Oh,  I'll  have  information  larger  than  any  human 
information!"  His  accent,  Devon  could  have  fancied, 
was  compounded  to  make  the  moment  pass  easily.  "I 
shan't  hear  of  your  ups  and  down,  or  your  goings  and 
comings;  but  I  shall  know,  as  I  believe,  the  great  facts 
about  your  welfare,  either  here  or  in  another  world. 
And  I  shall  always  remember  our  good  talks  at  Oxford, 
and  all  our  controversies  ...  So  many  things  as  I 
shall  have  to  remember!" 

Devon's  glance,  under  the  sense  of  his  impending 
departure,  had  turned  away.  He  looked  around  the 
obscure  room,  and  for  the  first  time  realised  the  extent 
of  its  nudity.  "And  all  your  things — what  you  used 
to  call  your  treasures?"  He  was  half  astonished  at  the 
relevance  his  question  seemed  to  have  to  the  moment. 

[208] 


ASCENT 

Father  Ames's  look  followed  his,  as  if  he  saw  in  the 
stripped  walls  his  own  sense  of  their  significance. 
"They  and  I  have  parted;  I  and  all  outward  symbols 
have  parted — you  see?  It's  been  a  strange  fate,  you 
know!  I've  stood  on  a  little  oasis,  beyond  human 
beings,  and  watched  them  commit  the  follies  and  mag 
nificences  of  existence.  I've  lectured  them  while 
they've  lived  and  recommended  them  to  God  when 
they've  died."  His  eyes  again  met  Devon's.  "But 
there's  no  one  for  whose  happiness  I  more  ardently 
pray  than  yours !  That  you  know ! " 

Devon  caught  his  hand,  and  a  moment  later  he  had 
closed  the  door. 


[209] 


XVI 

AS  Devon  stood  in  the  silence  of  his  hall,  just  at 
midnight,  all  that  peopled  the  stillness  seemed 
to  drop  like  a  weight  on  the  tense  cords  of  his 
nerves  and  to  hold  him  motionless. 

It  was  as  he  paused  for  a  second,  to  switch  off  the 
electric  light,  that  Olive's  voice  had  suddenly  sounded, 
from  her  room.  It  carried  its  habitual  accent  of 
impatience;  but  coming  out  of  the  dark,  at  this  hour 
and  when  all  the  house  was  asleep,  it  conveyed  to 
him  a  touch  of  her  mystery  and  stirred  his  constant 
sense  of  an  inexplicable  quality  in  her,  which  shaded 
her  like  the  wings  of  a  fate.  His  balance,  he  sup 
posed,  was  displaced  by  his  talk  with  Father  Ames 
and  their  parting.  The  wrench  was  intimate  to  him, 
and  its  circumstances  had  appealed  not  only  to  his 
feeling  but  to  the  innate  respect  he  bore  to  a  cause. 
The  brevity  of  their  words,  he  realised,  had  been  the 
measure  of  all  they  held;  and  the  impending  immola 
tion  of  so  vital  a  mind  and  the  artificial  relegation 
of  it  to  such  a  sterility,  gripped  his  thought  and 
tossed  through  it  traceless  uncertainties.  What 
would  he  himself  have  done  —  he  wondered  for  a 
second,  with  his  foot  on  the  stairs  —  signed  to  a  great 
idea  and  the  servant  of  such  a  belief?  What  would 
have  been  the  corresponding  enrichment?  And  all 
his  fertility  of  feeling  was  wrapped,  as  it  was,  about 
the  resonances  of  a  voice.  He  knew  that  like  most 

[210] 


ASCENT 

of  his  countrymen,  with  no  elaborations  in  the  refine 
ments  of  sense,  he  was  capable  of  putting  his  ardour 
only  into  a  personal  emotion  for  a  woman.  Beside 
Ames's,  his  seemed  to  him  suddenly  a  tracked,  mapped 
world,  without  winds  or  stars. 

Olive  was  raised  in  her  bed,  as  he  turned  from  the 
darkness  of  the  hall  into  the  darkness  of  her  room. 
He  could  hear  her  quick  movement  of  expectation  and 
the  sudden  drop,  as  she  realised  his  presence,  of  her 
shoulders  against  the  pillows.  She  had  shut  out  every 
possible  ray  of  light,  and  the  room  had  an  opaque 
blackness  which  was  as  stifling  as  its  lack  of  air.  The 
night  was  still  so  warm  that  it  was  difficult  to  breathe; 
but  when  he  moved  towards  the  window  she  arrested 
him. 

"No,  I  want  it  this  way.  If  you  open  the  curtains, 
the  light  from  the  street  will  come  in,  and  I  shall  see. 
It's  that,  that  I  can't  manage — to  see.  .  .  ."  Her 
voice  had  for  a  second  the  sharpness  of  overstrained 
feeling.  "Well!  And  you've  been  out,  walking  like  a 
free  being  through  the  streets,  without  the  sense  that 
all  your  life  was  contorted  and  changed  into  a  servi 
tude.  I  suppose  I  once  did  that,  too;  only  it  seems  so 
long  ago." 

He  knew  well  enough  these  signs  of  too  great  a 
tension  in  her,  and  he  tried  for  a  second  to  deflect  her 
mind.  She  must  be  suffocated,  he  said,  in  this  airless 
dark;  and  had  her  nurse  left  a  glass  of  milk  on  the 
table  within  her  reach,  and  had  she  taken  her  bouillon 
at  nine?  But  she  cut  him  off  peremptorily,  with  a  weari 
ness  which  was  more  piercing  than  her  irritation. 

"Oh,  I've  everything — everything.  I'm  fed  and 
cared  for.  I'm  even  at  last  commanding  some  of 

[211] 


ASCENT 

the  experience  I've  longed  for.  At  least,  John,  do  me 
that  justice!  I'm  like  grandfather — I  storm,  but  I 
don't  complain!" 

Devon  had  raised  her  hand  and  laid  it  against  his 
face,  as  if  his  comprehension  transcended  any  defini 
tion  of  its  depths,  and  he  could  feel,  in  her  thin  fingers, 
the  tremor  which  lay  beneath  her  silence.  With  his 
words  with  Father  Ames  dominating  his  mind,  her 
isolation  and  exclusion  had  never  appeared  to  him 
so  complete.  He  felt  the  poignancy  of  the  coarseness 
— he  faced  the  word — of  the  contradictions  in  her,  the 
perfect  brutality  of  her  egoism,  and  yet  the  streak 
of  something  large  which  always  saved  it  from  con 
demnation.  It  seemed  to  him  for  an  instant  symbolised 
by  the  crucifix  whose  outlines  he  could  just  discern, 
and  which  she  placed,  without  a  thought,  amongst  the 
powder  boxes  and  scent  bottles  on  her  dressing-table. 

The  strain  of  his  reflections  made  her  immeasurably 
alien  and  yet  intimately  close,  for  a  moment;  then  he 
spoke.  "Soon,  my  dear,  you'll  be  well  and  free  again." 

Olive  laughed  in  a  deeper  tone  than  her  usual  short 
one.  "Don't  you  see  that's  just  the  misery  of  it?  Of 
course  I  shall  be  well  and  as  free  as  the  wind — freer 
than  any  mother,  since  I'll  outgrow  my  baby  in  a  month 
or  two.  Oh,  have  no  illusions  about  it!  I  know  my 
freedom  is  a  hideous  thing." 

Devon  searched  for  something  with  which  to  meet 
her  hard  lucidity.  "But  can't  you  perpetuate  your 
self,  in  this  way — in  your  child — as  nothing  else  can 
ever  perpetuate  you?" 

He  could  almost  feel,  through  the  obscurity,  her 
stare  of  wonder;  and  he  instinctively  caught  up  her 
protest. 

[212] 


ASCENT 

"I've  no  illusions  either,  remember.  I  see  farther 
than  your  incapacities — to  your  capacities  .  .  ." 

Her  hand  for  an  instant  touched  his  cheek,  with  a 
responsive  pressure.  "Do  you  never  wonder  what 
the  return  of  my  freedom — of  my  bodily  activity — is 
going  to  make  you  pay?  The  future's  a  strange  thing; 
and  for  all  of  it  you've  linked  yourself  up  to  my  fate, 
whatever  it  is,  when  you  ought  to  have  married  a 
woman  who  would  have  thought  only  of  you,  and  I 
ought  to  have  married  a  man  who  would  have  ignored 
me.  .  .  ."  He  could  hear  her  head  shift  against  her 
pillow,  and  she  drew  a  long  breath.  "It's  terrible  to 
think,  John,  that  all  your  life  has  to  be  determined  by 
my  moods;  by  what  you  call  my  growth,  but  by  what  is 
in  reality  only  new  forms  of  my  wretched  restlessness  I " 

For  a  moment  again  Devon  did  not  speak.  Nothing 
had  ever  seemed  to  him  sadder  than  this  imprint  of 
her  nascent  experience  and  her  sense  of  her  own  limita 
tions  and  penalties.  He  bent  over  her  on  the  bed.  In 
the  dark  all  he  felt  was  the  warm  braid  of  her  hair; 
he  lifted  it  to  his  lips,  and  in  its  touch  against  them 
he  felt  that  he  touched  the  intimacies  of  her  thought. 

"My  dearest  child,  I've  some  news  for  you — news 
which  it's  only  a  happiness  to  tell  you,  for  when  you 
let  me  see  a  little  way  into  you,  Olive,  I'm  surer  than 
ever  of  your  comprehension.  To-night  I  went  to  see 
Ames.  I've  got  so  many  messages  for  you  from  him 
— messages  that  are  too  deep  for  the  term  mes 
sages  .  .  ." 

He  heard  her  turn  towards  him,  with  a  slowness 
which  marked  her  concentration.  "Yes?" 

"But  the  main  point's  brief  enough.  He's  leaving 
to-night,  by  the  midnight  train,  for  Canada." 

[213] 


ASCENT 

"I  thought  he  was  to  be  here  all  autumn  and  all 
winter,  to  lecture;  is  that  plan  changed?" 

As  she  moved  her  hair  had  fallen  from  his  hands; 
and  her  withdrawal  into  the  obscurity  which  so  sepa 
rated  them  seemed  to  Devon  to  break  the  current  of 
the  exchange  of  feeling  between  them. 

"Every  plan  has  changed."  He  responded  with  his 
tone  unconsciously  altered.  "He's  sailing  to-morrow. 
He  goes  directly  to  his  brother,  the  Archbishop,  in 
London,  and  from  there  he  goes  to  Farnborough." 

"To  Farnborough  .  .  .  But  why!"  she  exclaimed. 

"It's  unthinkable  to  us  both,  but  as  he  himself  says, 
it's  completed.  He's  decided  to  enter  the  order  of  the 
Carmelites;  and  you  know  what  that  means.  We've 
got  to  face  it  that  Ames,  as  we've  known  him,  is  lost 
to  us." 

She  was  silent  for  so  prolonged  a  moment  that  Devon 
could  almost  count  the  pulses  of  his  expectancy.  In 
the  tension  of  his  relation  to  her,  he  had  never  felt 
so  clearly  the  storm  of  the  unassuaged  forces  in  her 
or  their  beat  against  all  his  own  presuppositions.  The 
inadequacy  of  his  knowledge  of  her  reactions  seemed 
to  numb  his  mind  and  leave  his  thought  inert.  If 
only  he  could  foreseje,  he  caught  himself  wishing,  what 
she  would  feel,  he  could  help  her;  but  what  was  the 
use  of  any  effort  in  this  separation? 

He  felt  her  hand  clutch  his  arm,  and  she  suddenly 
sat  up  and  bent  forward.  "What  time  is  it?"  she  asked. 
"Strike  a  match  and  see  .  .  ." 

He  laid  his  hand  on  hers.  "It's  no  use,  my  dear. 
His  train's  gone.  I  heard  the  clock  chime  the  quarter 
after  midnight  as  I  came  upstairs." 

[214] 


ASCENT 

She  dropped  back.  He  could  hear  her  quickened 
breath,  and  his  sympathy  rose  in  a  tide. 

"Oh,  Olive,  you  must  understand  it  better  than  I 
— you  who  are  of  his  own  faith.  But,  my  dear,  to  you 
it's  so  far  greater  a  grief  than  to  me!  It's  you  to 
whom  he  taught  the  greatest  things,  the  things  that 
make  us  live  and  die  ..." 

She  broke  out  with  an  impetuosity  which  swept  his 
words  aside.  "Oh,  don't,  don't,  don't!  As  if  I  care 
for  what  he  taught  me — for  what's  only  theoretic  and 
dead!  What  I  need  is  himself,  his  personality,  his 
mind,  his  knowledge.  When  I  think  what  our  rela 
tion  was — of  the  amazing  adjustment  between  us,  of 
the  magnificent  stimulant  I  was  to  him  and  he  to  me 
— when  I  think  of  what  we  might  have  experienced 
together, — no,  it's  too  miserable,  it's  too  stupid!" 

Devon  rose;  he  was  aware  of  the  carved  end  of 
the  bed,  under  his  hand,  and  the  lighter  oblong  of 
the  door  leading  to  the  hall,  opposite  him.  He  heard 
her  continue  to  murmur  to  herself,  with  every  now 
and  then  the  broken  interruption  of  a  sob;  but  her 
grief  was  incapable  of  attenuating  the  hard  outlines  of 
the  image  of  her  which  hung  before  him  in  the  dark. 
For  a  second  his  impulse  to  leave  her  was  so  pressing 
that  he  fought  with  it.  Some  intimation  rose  in  his 
mind  that  he  could  never  cease  to  see  her  as  she  had, 
in  her  few  words,  drawn  herself. 

He  turned  back  to  the  bed,  and  spoke  in  a  voice 
which  struck  him  as  no  less  forced  and  artificial  than 
his  words. 

"You've  got  your  glass  of  milk,  you  say,  and  your 
bell  is  under  your  pillow?  Very  well,  then;  good 
night." 

[215] 


ASCENT 

He  was  conscious  that  she  twisted  towards  him  and 
raised  her  head,  as  if  she  were  trying  to  see  him. 

"You  know,  John,  that  when  all  is  said  and  done, 
you  detest  me!" 

His  ceaseless  preoccupation  with  the  special  con 
sideration  due  her  relaxed  its  stricture  for  a  moment, 
and  he  wheeled  about  sharply. 

"There  are  things  in  you  which  I  detest — yes." 

They  waited  for  an  instant.  "Let  me  go,  then!" 
she  exclaimed.  "Oh,  I'm  not  the  sort  of  woman  who 
would  sentimentalise  about  it,  or  about  leaving  you 
at  such  a  time — before  my  child's  born.  I've  some 
thing  of  those  bare  Ware  hills  in  me,  I  suppose;  haven't 
we  all  in  us  the  stamp  of  what  we  most  hate?  I 
shouldn't  be  frightened  by  the  conventionalities  of 
failure.  I'll  never  make  you  anything  but  miserable. 
I  offend  everything  in  you.  No,  no, — it's  hopeless!" 

"Sometimes,  I  admit,"  Devon  spoke  slowly,  "it  seems 
to  me  hopeless  enough  that  I  should  ever  reach  you. 
I've  caught  myself,  lately,  not  looking  ahead.  Don't 
think  I  trick  myself.  All  I  do  with  my  life  is  to  knock 
my  brain  against  the  problem  of  what's  to  become  of 
you." 

The  touch  of  defiance  with  which  she  always  instinc 
tively  spoke  of  herself  tinged  her  voice.  "Even  grand 
father,  who  wasn't  given  to  hysteria,  said  there  was 
nothing  to  save  me!" 

Devon  did  not  reply.  Perhaps,  he  thought,  the 
profundity  of  her  own  scepticism  had  communicated 
itself  to  him.  His  thoughts  turned  suddenly  back  to 
Ames's  capacity  to  sacrifice  all  his  participation  for 
the  unseen  and  for  the  single  reality  which  could  never 
be  proven.  Something  in  him  had  been  touched  and 

[216] 


ASCENT 

aged;  during  the  last  weeks,  and  to-night,  he  was 
conscious  of  it.  He  would  go  on  with  the  same  per 
sistency,  he  knew,  the  same  dependence  on  his  feeling 
for  her  and  the  same  complete  devotion,  but  with  no 
belief.  He  did  not  deny  that  he  would  always  be 
driven  and  dominated  by  it,  and  that  his  sense  of 
obligation  to  it  was,  as  far  as  human  immutability  went, 
immutable.  But  its  miracle,  he  saw,  would  be  per 
formed  in  him  alone.  The  isolation  inherent  in  all 
dedication  had  never  struck  him  before.  He  drew 
the  covers  around  her  shoulders  without  any  further 
word,  and  felt  his  way  across  the  hall  to  his  room. 


[217] 


Ill 


XVII 

IN  the  still  light  of  the  September  afternoon,  the 
curled  golden  leaves  of  the  chestnut  trees  drifted 
noiselessly  down  from  the  interlaced  branches, 
through  the  luminance  of  the  autumn  air.  Their  fall 
had  the  long  motion  of  time.  Hasteless  and  sure,  there 
was  some  grace  in  its  inevitability  which  caught  Olive's 
eyes  and  lifted  them.  Not  the  least  of  her  amazements, 
since  she  had  touched  the  mystery  which  enwraps 
Paris  like  a  pale  veil  of  mauve  and  blue,  had  been  this 
sense  of  the  sudden  implications  which  it  resumed. 
The  very  drop  of  a  leaf,  the  fall  of  the  light,  the  stir 
of  the  alleys  of  the  Luxembourg,  so  full  of  the  vitality 
of  Parisian  life  and  so  far  fuller  of  the  deep  silences 
of  history,  cast  her  thought  back  to  the  flow  of  time 
and  to  the  drama  of  significance  in  the  poetry  of  an 
enriched  age. 

In  the  last  days,  she  had  caught  her  breath  enough, 
free  from  the  first  pressure  of  the  excitement  of  arrival, 
to  measure  how  deep  her  wonder  was.  All  the  technical 
differences  of  a  new  civilisation  had  diverted  her  at  first. 
It  had  been  marvellous  to  trace  the  outline  of  the  cliffs 
and  the  quaintness  of  the  harbour,  when  they  landed,  to 
see  gestures  so  free  and  hear  voices  so  pitched  to 
other  shadings.  All  the  arid  recollections  of  her  child 
hood  contributed  to  her  surprise.  But  she  had  brushed 
them  by,  with  as  easy  a  rapidity  as  she  traversed  her 
first  days.  She  had  exclaimed  to  Devon,  when  they 
first  stood  in  the  Louvre  and  watched  their  first  sunset 

[221] 


ASCENT 

stream  magnificently  along  the  Champs  Elysees,  that, 
astonished  as  she  was,  it  was  above  all  wonderful  that 
she  was  to  be  more  astonished  to-morrow;  and  he  had 
turned  over  his  shoulder  to  her  to  say,  with  his  eyes 
full  of  amusement,  that  he  never  could  get  over  the 
easy  familiarity  of  her  terms  with  astonishment.  The 
rapidity  of  her  impressions,  indeed,  struck  him  no  less 
than  her  adaptability  to  them.  She  fell  into  them  as 
easily  as  she  fell  into  French,  and  with  a  competence 
as  unfailing  as  the  competence  she  showed  in  accustom 
ing  herself  to  French  meanings,  in  engaging  her  ser 
vants  and  in  directing  the  details  of  their  installation. 

Devon  had  secured  a  sublease  of  a  little  apartment 
in  the  rue  Pierre  Charron  which,  as  Olive  said  when 
she  first  looked  about  the  single  salon,  was  exactly 
on  the  scale  of  what  her  initiation  was  at  present  worth. 
She  would  be  absurd,  she  said,  in  rooms  too  old;  there 
was  too  little  which  was  ripe  about  her.  Here,  with 
the  few  pieces  of  good  furniture,  the  highly  waxed 
brown  floors  and  the  blue  and  buff  hangings  of  old 
Jouy,  they  would  at  least  be  separate  from  the  outer 
habits  of  tourists.  Her  flash  of  wisdom  struck  Devon 
most,  as  she  saw,  in  its  consistency.  She  might  take 
to  it  all  like  a  duck  to  water,  and  with  all  the  American 
fluency,  she  assured  him;  but  she  knew  what  she 
could  not  do.  By  the  terms  of  her  nature  she  was 
condemned  to  be  in  perpetual  motion.  She  was  even 
condemned — she  had  put  it  with  her  sardonic  touch — 
to  be  herself  the  poorest  kind  of  tourist,  who  had  such 
a  thirst  for  seeing  that  she  never  saw  deeper  than  the 
outer  aspect. 

She  was  constantly  remembering,  from  the  farthest 
days  at  Ware,  old  Lacy's  amusement  at  what  he  called 

[222] 


ASCENT 

his  incapacity  to  travel.  When  he  was  young,  or 
younger,  and  before  the  collapse  of  his  resources,  it 
appeared  that  he  had  made  the  tour  of  Europe  then 
consecrated  by  custom;  and  he  had  never  after  ceased 
to  comment  with  pride  on  his  refusal,  as  he  put 
it,  to  displace  himself.  "I  was  made  to  criticise, 
not  to  absorb,"  he  had  been  fond  of  saying;  "I  am  not 
French,  my  dear,  no,  no,  no;  my  emotions  are  far  too 
complex  and  my  appreciations  too  simple.  But  I  don't 
have,  thank  God,  any  real  participation.  Intellectually 
I  am  just  local — nothing  more — and  not  like  Goethe 
who,  as  Mme.  de  Stael  so  delightfully  says,  made  him 
self  a  pagan  for  the  purpose  of  penetrating  antiquity. 
You're  probably  more  like  me,  pussy,  than  you  are 
like  Goethe.  Since  you're  a  woman  you'll  be  sacrificed 
to  a  woman's  plasticity,  but  in  reality  you'll  be  just 
little  Olive  Lacy.  Think  it  as  extraordinary  as  it 
really  is,  but  don't  be  fooled  by  it,  my  dear — don't 
be  fooled!" 

As  long  before  as  when  their  leaving  America  had 
been  determined,  she  had  had  a  constant  and  vivid 
vision  of  the  same  steady  regard  which  had  pierced  all 
the  mists  of  her  childhood,  watching  her  with  a  new 
element  of  appraisal.  Her  grandfather's  quick  touch 
had  lain  more  than  ever  on  her  remembrance,  as  if  his 
vigil  over  her  had  never  been  more  close  and  critical. 
She  had  recovered  from  the  birth  of  her  little  daughter, 
in  the  February  before,  with  a  difficulty  which  her 
doctors  could  not  explain.  For  weeks  her  physical 
lassitude  had  dominated  her  and  all  her  energy  seemed 
dispersed  in  the  monotony  of  her  pain.  Her  delicacy 
of  constitution  had  never  been  more  apparent;  and 
Devon  had  admitted  to  her  that  she  herself  came 

[223] 


ASCENT 

closest  to  an  understanding  of  it  when  she  said,  with 
a  smile  just  touching  her  pallor,  that  her  bodily  condi 
tions  would  always  be  determined  by  what  was  in  her 
mind,  and  that  just  now  she  had  no  enthusiasm  to 
tonic  her.  Her  interest  rose  at  moments,  and  even  her 
suffering  would  pale  in  her  attempt  to  define  it.  But 
whatever  other  women  might  get  out  of  the  experi 
ence  she  had  traversed,  she  said  that  she  had  finished 
with  it.  What  made  her  baby  most  real  to  her,  as 
she  frankly  assured  Devon  and  Father  Norton,  was 
the  imposition  inherent  in  the  law  of  reproduction  and 
the  unfair  demand  on  her  vitality.  Her  comments 
had  never  had  a  sharper  thrust  of  truth  nor  had  her 
honesty  ever  been  barer;  and  she  did  not  attempt  to 
deny  that  what  she  felt  for  the  child  was  a  residue  of 
feeling,  something  come  to  fruition  long  after  the 
impulse  which  created  it  had  permanently  vanished. 

She  had  wondered  if  Father  Norton,  as  he  listened 
to  her,  had  ever  applied  the  same  terms  to  her  relation 
with  her  faith.  She  never  talked  to  him  nor  received 
his  instruction  without  asking  herself  if  her  sense  of 
Father  Ames's  absence  did  not  make  her  replies  too 
caustic  and  her  responses  too  dry.  When  she  was 
again  able  to  resume  her  religious  duties,  she  per 
formed  them  with  a  sudden  eagerness.  To  grow  in 
familiarity  with  their  ritual  meant  an  echo  of  the 
ritual  of  Ames's  thought,  and  she  had  seemed  at  times 
to  recapture  an  actual  sense  of  him  and  of  a  present 
and  unseen  bond  with  his  consciousness.  Frequently, 
when  she  heard  mass,  she  caught  herself  fixed  in  a  con 
centration  of  remembrance,  suddenly  separate  from  her 
surroundings,  and  his  presence,  in  what  had  been  the 
moment  of  the  greatest  consecration  of  all  his  adher- 

[224] 


ASCENT 

ence,  was  a  reality  to  her.  She  fell  into  the  ways  and 
attitudes  of  mind  she  conceived  he  would  have  expected 
of  her  with  the  same  rapid  adaptability  with  which  she 
genuflected  and  crossed  herself.  But  as  her  memory 
of  him  thinned,  under  the  friction  of  her  impatience, 
her  adherence  to  his  habits  thinned.  She  had  no 
instinctive  reliance  on  any  of  the  outer  forms  of  the 
faith,  and  the  impulse  which  had  made  her  assume 
them  seemed  to  her  so  lightly  rooted  that  she  wished, 
at  times,  that  Father  Norton  would  relax  a  vigilance 
which  was  beginning  to  irk  her. 

The  return  of  her  physical  resistance,  when  it  came, 
had  taken  the  form  of  a  sharp  recrudescence  of  her  will. 
During  the  long  months  of  her  convalescence  her 
determination  had  had  countless  hours  in  which  to 
clarify  itself.  She  was  measuring  such  elemental  dis 
tances  and  balancing  such  wide  facts  that  she  often 
found  herself  back  in  front  of  the  coal  grate  in  the 
Ware  sitting  room,  with  Norah  rattling  the  plates  in 
the  pantry,  the  dead  creeper  tapping  the  pane  and  her 
grandfather  asleep  in  his  chair.  Her  quality  of  domi 
nance  had  risen  with  her  strength  and  had  sharpened 
her  energy;  and  as  her  pulses  stirred,  it  had  seemed  to 
her  as  if  no  horizon  were  wide  enough  to  satisfy  her. 
She  wanted  to  travel,  she  wanted  change  and  a  sort  of 
instruction  newer  than  the  easy  conditions  of  New 
York.  In  New  York  she  knew  too  exactly,  she  told 
Mrs.  Devon,  who  heard  her  with  a  more  and  more 
uncomfortable  uncertainty  as  to  all  her  own  presupposi 
tions,  what  to  expect. 

"But,  my  dear,  there's  an  enormous  amount  of 
life  here!"  her  mother-in-law  had  insistently  pro 
tested.  "I'm  not  too  old-fashioned,  you  know,  and 

[225] 


ASCENT 

I  can  tell  you  many  and  many  an  instance  of  people 
who,  as  it's  called,  have  lived." 

"But  what  do  you  mean  by  lived?"  Olive  had  shot 
her  quick  glance  at  the  amiable  elegance  of  Mrs. 
Devon's  face.  "I  suppose  you  mean  they've  been 
immoral;  and  immorality  means  to  most  people  just 
the  relation  of  the  sexes.  Yes,  but  they  could  be 
ceaselessly  immoral,  if  they  wanted,  and  to  my  mind 
they  wouldn't  be  living.  They're  empty,  ignorant — 
they're  like  me.  We're  all  the  same,  as  a  race.  We're 
sure,  we're  dull." 

"Yet  you  must  admit,  my  child,  that  there's  a 
splendour  in  New  York!"  Olive  could  tell  that  lately, 
across  luncheon  tables,  she  had  picked  up  an  attitude 
of  acute  patriotism;  "the  skyscrapers — how  magnifi 
cent!  And  the  roar  and  rush  of  it,  the  bare  beauty  of 
those  steel  frame  works  and  those  great  swinging 
cranes,  against  the  sunset!" 

Olive  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  see  it.  Life  is 
universal,  and  I've  too  much  thirst  to  limit  it  to  some 
thing  which  is  so  little  conscious  of  itself  as  our  own 
civilisation." 

"But  people  admire  you  so,  Olive!"  Mrs.  Devon's 
tone  with  her,  Olive  noted,  was  always  set  now  at  a 
pitch  of  protestation. 

"Yes;  but  their  admiration,"  Olive's  smile  hesitated, 
"is  too  easy.  They've  asked  me  endlessly  to  their 
houses  or  they've  neglected  me,  they've  liked  me  or 
disliked  me,  but  there's  been  no  character  in  either 
their  antipathy  or  their  kindness.  I  begin  to  think  my 
grandfather  was  right  when  he  said  it  took  a  long  time 
for  a  community  to  deal  in  character.  New  York's  a 
crowd,  and  that's  all." 

[226] 


ASCENT 

"Well,  you  and  John  are  beyond  me!"  was  all  Mrs. 
Devon  could  sententiously  say.  "And  he's  going  to 
have  a  quite  marvellous  career,  they  tell  me.  Too 
odd,  isn't  it?  One  can  think  of  John  solid  enough, 
but  not  with  a  career.  And  if  you  trot  him  off  to 
Europe  to  do  nothing  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  he  has  a  design  to  make  for  a  competition  in 
the  spring,"  said  Olive  lightly.  "That  will  take  him 
two  or  three  months  of  Paris;  and  he  deserves  a  holi 
day.  Besides,  as  I  tell  him,  either  we  live  according 
to  rote  or  we  don't,  and  rote,  here,  means  expensive 
food,  expensive  servants,  and  a  house  with  a  white 
marble  front.  Forgive  me  if  I  say  again  that  that's 
not  life." 

Mrs.  Devon  regarded  her,  with  her  small  glance 
suddenly  shrewd.  "And  when  do  you  expect  to  reach 
China?" 

"In  my  progress?     Oh,  ultimately." 

"Can  John  be  an  architect  in  China,  my  dear?" 

"Probably;  and  if  not,  it  will  all  be  learning,  experi 
encing,  adventuring." 

Mrs.  Devon  broke  out  suddenly.  "But  you're  not 
going  because  you  want  adventure!  You're  going 
because  you  want  to  have  a  good  time.  I'm  sure  I 
don't  know  what  the  difference  between  the  two  is, 
but  I  feel  it  in  my  bones." 

Olive  had  laughed,  and  she  herself  was  the  one  to 
remark  that  it  was  fortunate  that  Devon  had  an 
income  apart  from  his  business.  "It  won't  give  us 
a  house  with  a  marble  front,  even  in  China,  but  it 
will  give  us  what  we  want,  you  see;  what  we  happen 
to  want." 

Mrs.  Devon's  glance  was  more  than  ever  puzzled. 
[227] 


ASCENT 

"But  when  your  sables  fade — !"  was  all  she  could 
exclaim.  "And  what  you  want—  she  hesitated. 
"Does  John  always  want  just  what  you  do?" 

"Always,"  said  Olive  instantly;  and  when  Mrs. 
Devon  murmured  that  that  was  rather  magnificent,  she 
ended  the  conversation,  with  her  surest  touch,  by 
remarking  that  she  herself  called  it  convenient  rather 
than  magnificent. 

Nothing  could  have  been  less  in  the  key  of  his 
mother's  tone  than  Devon's  acceptance  of  her  wish 
to  displace  themselves.  She  remembered  the  one  rapid, 
silent  glance  he  had  given  her,  the  night  when  she  had 
first  opened  the  question,  looking  across  at  her  from 
beneath  his  lowered  lids,  with  his  paper  fallen  to  his 
knees  and  his  hand,  which  kept  the  brown  thin  look 
of  youth,  stroking  his  chin.  It  was  like  his  brevity  of 
comment  that  this  charged  look  should  alone  have 
expressed  to  her  all  the  shades  of  his  opinion,  all  the 
cross-questions  involving  his  work  and  his  connections, 
and  all  his  dislikes  and  likes  in  the  matter.  Before 
she  could  catch  it,  it  was  gone,  and  he  said,  in  his 
absent  way,  that  he  supposed  it  could  somehow  be 
put  through,  that  his  competition  design  could  very 
well  be  done  in  Paris,  and  that  they  might  let  their 
house. 

Most  of  their  communication  in  the  last  months  had 
been  tacit,  so  far  as  any  definition  of  his  feeling  went. 
This  instinctive  silence  in  him  surprised  Olive  more 
than  anything  else.  The  friction  which  she  naturally 
stimulated  had  always,  in  one  way  or  another,  been 
expressed.  Silence  had  never  been  one  of  the  attributes 
of  life  in  the  little  house  at  Ware,  and  she  had  inherited 
something  of  her  grandfather's  assumption  that  unless 

[228] 


ASCENT 

opposition  were  phrased  and  vociferous,  it  had  not 
been  provoked  to  a  point  where  sheer  imposition  could 
down  it.  She  recognised,  now  that  he  fell  more  and 
more  into  it,  how  deep  the  reticence  in  Devon  had 
always  been.  His  devotion  was  none  the  less  constant 
and  none  the  less  lit  by  his  dry  glancing  criticism,  like 
the  flash  of  a  fantastic  light  in  an  intelligence  she  could 
never  measure.  Since  their  last  talk  about  Ames  there 
had  once  or  twice  risen  to  the  surface  of  her  mind  the 
suspicion  that  there  were  things  in  Devon  himself 
which  she  could  not  compute.  But  the  thought  had 
no  resonances  for  her,  and  she  had  summarily  disre 
garded  it. 

Yet  she  recognised  that  the  balance  between  them, 
since  that  night,  had  been  to  the  slightest  extent  dis 
arranged.  This  had  been  most  evident  to  her  in  the 
differing  ways  of  their  acceptance  of  the  little  Beatrix, 
who  was  named  for  Mrs.  Devon  and  who  seemed,  for 
the  moment,  like  nothing  so  much  as  her  grandmother, 
with  a  frail  blonde  quality  completely  removed  from 
Olive's.  Devon  was  glad  of  this,  he  had  said,  in  the 
first  hour  when  he  bent  over  her  and  Olive  on  the 
bed. 

"There's  to  be  only  one  of  you,  you  see!"  he  had 
exclaimed,  with  his  smile  full  of  what  lay  behind  his 
comment,  as  he  laid  a  hand  first  on  her  shoulder  and 
then  on  the  fine  gold  of  the  child's  head. 

Her  weakness  had  surged  over  her  in  a  sudden  wave, 
and  she  had  lifted  her  hands  to  grasp  his  arm. 

"You've  still  this  wonderful  faith  in  me?"  she  had 
asked. 

"Oh,  in  much  more  than  you — in  her!"  He  had 
evaded  it  with  perfect  kindness,  and  had  turned  to  ask 

[229] 


ASCENT 

the  nurse  a  question.  But  her  impression  that  he  had 
closed  a  door  had  been  definite  enough  to  have  a 
definite  effect  on  her.  The  sense  that  she  was  missing 
an  experience  which  he  possessed  had  touched  her 
obstinacy  and  stirred  her  desire  to  imitate  it.  She  had 
looked  down  at  the  little  creature  on  her  arm,  and  had 
repeated  to  herself  the  facts  of  its  dependence  and 
helplessness,  that  it  was  part  of  herself,  that  this  was 
the  greatest  of  initiations.  For  days  she  tried  to  give 
these  thoughts  force  and  life  and  to  place  some  credence 
in  them.  She  asked  perpetually  to  have  the  child 
with  her,  she  kept  it  close  to  her  while  she  was  saying 
her  prayers,  and  felt  continually  for  its  warmth  against 
her  shoulder.  As  she  rested  in  her  darkened  room, 
with  the  curtains  drawn  against  the  hard  winter  sun 
light  and  only  the  rise  of  the  fire  to  tire  her  strained 
head,  she  seemed  to  see  what  Ames  would  have  said 
to  this  attitude  and  how  fitting  he  would  have  con 
sidered  it,  and  that  she  would  have  earned  the  com 
mendation  of  even  his  difficult  taste  as  she  lay  with 
the  shining  head  against  her  and  her  rosary  twined 
through  her  clasped  fingers. 

Devon  had  spoken  less  of  the  child  and  seemed  less 
occupied  by  it  than  she.  He  held  it  at  times,  usually 
alone  in  his  library,  and  when  she  was  able  to  walk 
from  room  to  room,  Olive  found  him  frequently  beside 
the  cradle,  watching  the  fragile  hands  move.  The 
more  she  surprised  these  slow  disclosures  of  his  feeling, 
the  more  her  own  silence  grew.  But  there  frequently 
swept  across  her  face,  like  the  darkening  of  a  cloud, 
a  gust  of  exasperation  that  her  attitude  should  be  so 
invariably  tested  by  the  reality  of  his  own;  and  as 
soon  as  she  was  strong  enough,  she  had  broached 

[230] 


ASCENT 

to  him  the  subject  of  her  restlessness  and  her  desire 
to  travel. 

She  let  her  eyes  follow  the  slant  of  the  afternoon 
sun  down  the  long  alley.  Beyond  her  the  grey  front 
of  the  palace  faced  the  pale  light,  with  all  the  compact 
ness  of  a  tradition  older  than  itself,  immemorial  and 
secure.  The  assurances  of  her  surroundings  seemed  to 
her  beyond  the  rise  and  fall  of  history  and  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  change.  Whatever  France  did,  it  existed  as 
a  spirit,  far  above  even  the  beauty  of  its  manifestation. 
The  clear  pool  of  sunshine  around  the  pond,  with  the 
gay  French  children  moving  at  its  edges,  the  inimitable 
personality  of  the  bent  black-bonetted  women  and  the 
light  intelligence  of  the  younger  ones,  all  appeared  to 
her  to  unite  and  blaze  with  a  quality  representative  of 
a  whole  people.  She  felt  her  sense  of  life  palpably 
quicken.  The  pulse  of  enthusiasm  had  never  in  just 
this  way  beat  in  her  veins.  For  the  first  time  she  was 
experiencing  the  sense  of  the  dominance  of  a  civilisa 
tion;  and  when  she  measured  these  laws  of  long 
developments  and  consequent  adjustments  against  her 
infinitesimal  individuality,  her  former  conception  of 
beauty  seemed  to  her  to  have  been  limited  and  con 
stricted  to  nothing  but  the  image  in  her  glass. 

She  had  turned  her  eyes  along  the  alley  leading  to 
the  gates  which  gave  on  the  Boulevard  Saint  Michel; 
and  suddenly  she  made  out,  amongst  the  moving 
figures,  one  which  easily  detached  itself  as  Devon's. 
Her  attention  set  fixedly  on  him,  as  he  made  his  way 
in  and  out  of  the  scattered  people  and  approached, 
sometimes  in  view  and  sometimes  hidden  from  her. 
Perhaps  this  heightened  apprehension  was  what  she 

[231] 


ASCENT 

felt  him  to  be  constantly  in  search  of.  For  the  first 
time  his  participation  was  explained  to  her  by  this 
sense  of  a  sharper  and  finer  taste  of  living  than  any  she 
had  yet  imagined.  The  stimulation  of  the  thought  that 
she  could  capture  it  lifted  her  eyes  and  heightened  the 
carriage  of  her  head;  then  she  dropped  impatiently 
back  in  her  chair.  What  good  would  an  added  sensi 
tiveness  and  a  quickened  consciousness  like  his  after  all 
do  her,  since  they  would  impose  upon  her  laws  which 
wouldn't,  in  her  instinctive  terms,  pay?  Did  she  see 
herself,  she  wondered  ironically,  living  in  an  unseen 
inner  world,  like  Devon,  or  in  a  Carmelite  monastery, 
perhaps,  like  Ames? 


[232! 


XVIII 

WHEN  Devon  was  only  a  few  yards  distant 
and  finally  emerged  from  the  shifting  knot 
of  children  and  mothers,  as  they  moved  to 
and  fro  in  the  summery  softness  of  the  afternoon, 
Olive  saw  that  he  was  not  alone. 

The  young  man  who  was  beside  him,  suiting  his 
shorter  pace  to  Devon's  long  one,  and  with  his  whole 
presence  a  flash  of  Gallic  cordiality,  was  nearer  her 
own  age.  He  was  fair,  with  a  fair  upturned  moustache 
and  eyes  so  light  that  their  quick  vivacity  was  some 
times  grey  and  sometimes  blue.  He  wore  his  rather 
loose  clothes  with  a  carelessness  a  trifle  studied,  and 
swung  his  stick  with  a  touch  of  amusement  at  his  own 
energy.  Even  as  they  drew  near  Olive  was  instinc 
tively  aware,  in  his  rapid  conveyance  of  ability,  that 
she  had  not  yet  seen  anyone  so  completely  of  his  race. 
Perhaps  because  of  her  sense  of  contrast,  her  first 
look,  however,  as  the  two  paused  before  her  chair, 
was  at  Devon.  Against  his  companion's  blondness, 
his  lean  dark  face,  whose  light  lines  showed  already 
in  a  visible  tracery,  had  suddenly  a  particular  quality. 
His  eyes  looked  at  once  more  smiling  and  more  grave, 
and  his  tall  thin  figure  fuller  of  both  his  indolence  and 
energy.  She  wondered  whether  this  rapid  play  of  a 
new  light  on  him  had  not  struck  from  his  carefully 
neutral  tints  new  characteristics.  He  had  always  been 
more  himself,  she  remembered,  with  Ames's  rapid 
interest  playing  on  him.  .  .  . 

[233] 


ASCENT 

She  drew  her  thoughts  together,  with  a  sudden 
effort.  To  feel  herself  confronted  by  different  qualities 
of  the  same  admiration,  in  both  men's  faces,  made  her 
immediately  aware  of  how  charming  she  must  look, 
with  her  dark  wrap  outlining  the  whiteness  of  her 
throat,  and  some  white  carnations  drawn  through  the 
lace  which  fell  away  from  it.  She  held  out  her  hand, 
in  response  to  what  Devon  was  saying,  with  the  smile 
which  always  touched  her  beauty  like  a  light. 

"It's  Rene  Mallary  de  la  Rivaudiere,  you  know, 
of  whom  you've  heard  me  talk  so  often!  My  wife's 
done  worse  than  that,  my  dear  boy.  She  must  have 
heard  my  mother  talk,  not  of  you  —  you  frighten 
mother  too  much — but  of  your  own  mother  and  your 
terrific  estates  and  all  that;  and  since  I  caught  him  at 
our  door,  I  refused  to  let  him  go  away  without  seeing 
us,  and  brought  him  along  with  me  to  meet  you." 

Rivaudiere  released  her  hand,  with  a  light  pressure. 
"Devon,  of  course,  like  all  Americans,  goes  in  compe 
tently  for  detail,  and  incompetently  misses  the  truth! 
The  truth  is  quite  simply  that  I  insisted  on  coming. 
Not  the  worst  report  your  so  charming  mother-in-law 
could  have  given  of  me  would  have  deterred  me. 
You  haven't" — he  turned  his  quizzical  look  to  Devon 
— "troubled  yourself  to  condemn  me  to  your  wife?" 

Devon  interpolated  that  he  had  left  that  responsi 
bility  to  the  future,  but  his  smile  at  the  younger  man 
was  full  of  liking.  "He's  a  socialist,  Olive,  and  heaven 
knows  what  else;  you  see  his  English  is  better  than 
ours  because  he's  studied  it;  in  addition  to  these  talents 
he's  got  some  remarkable  dry  points,  and  he's  a  captain 
in  the  Armee  de  1'Air,  with  all  sorts  of  honours  and 
more  than  twenty  victories  to  his  credit  ..." 

[234] 


ASCENT 

As  Devon  ran  on  Olive's  eyes  fixed  on  the  young 
Frenchman's  face.  Her  instinctive  search,  in  the  aspect 
of  anyone  who  for  the  first  time  confronted  her,  for  a 
sign  of  response  to  her  own  insistive  attitude,  had  never 
been  more  immediately  gratified.  Standing  with  his 
hat  still  in  his  hand  and  his  face  turned  to  the  clear 
late  light,  Rivaudiere's  eyes  were  as  full  of  the  play  of 
his  frank  pleasure  as  his  smile.  His  easy  courtesy 
seemed  outspread  to  express  his  appreciation. 

"That  is  all  quite  true,  dear  Mrs.  Devon.  Even 
Devon's  untruths  are  true,  aren't  they?  He  is  such 
a  magnificent  example  of  your  conscientious,  nervous 
race.  But  we  sometimes  find — do  we  not? — that  if 
one  pulls  these  alleged  glories  to  pieces —  "  his  gesture 
was  full  of  a  resigned  amusement.  "I  assure  you  mine 
are  very  pale;  except  for  the  fact  that  your  husband 
is  my  charming  friend,  and  that  you  and  he  are  at 
last  in  Paris,  and  confronting  me.  And  now  what  will 
you  do?  Will  you  both  come  off  somewhere  to  tea?" 

Devon  laughed  and  glanced  at  his  watch.  "Your 
guile,  my  dear  boy,  is  as  I  expected.  When  I've  just 
told  you  I  was  this  moment  due  at  old  Destournelles's 
— the  old  chap  who  used  to  make  us  so  miserable  with 
our  scale  drawing  at  the  Beaux  Arts.  I'll  leave  Olive 
to  you,  as  you  so  evidently  mean  I  should,  provided 
you'll  finally  see  her  to  a  taxi  and  started  for  home. 
We're  dining  out  at  eight,  I  think?" 

Young  Rivaudiere  had  listened  with  his  light  sem 
blance  of  attention  while  Devon  confirmed  the  details 
of  their  evening  engagements,  and  had  taken  his  hand 
just  as  effusively,  at  parting,  as  his  look  had  seemed 
to  play  over  Olive's  beauty.  But  when  Devon,  with 
his  dry  nod,  had  turned  away  and  passed  on  down 

[2351 


ASCENT 

the  alley,  amongst  the  crowd,  he  took  the  vacant  chair 
beside  Olive  and  bent  forward  with  a  suddenly  different 
accent  in  his  smile. 

"I  am  so  immensely  glad  to  see  you,  Mrs.  Devon! 
But  then,  let  us  admit  it,  I  have  seen  youl" 

"You've  seen  me?"  Olive's  eyebrows  raised. 

"Yes.  Last  night,  at  the  Varietes.  Seen  you — !" 
He  laughed.  "It  would  have  indeed  been  difficult  not 
to  see  you!  You  were — you'll  forgive  me — so  ex 
quisite.  You  had  such  a  special  quality,  which  so 
separated  and  isolated  you  in  that  crowd.  From  my 
seat — I  was  with  a  friend — I  couldn't  trace  more  than 
the  back  of  your  head  and  sometimes,  as  you  turned, 
almost  your  profile.  I  didn't  at  all,  from  the  back 
of  his  head,  make  out  Devon;  so  that  though  I  saw 
you  were  a  stranger,  I  didn't  place  you.  Now  I  find 
myself  confronted  by  the  happiest  of  coincidences. 
But  as  if  one  needed  to  place  the  universal,  by  a  name 
or  a  nationality!  And  you — again  you  will  allow  me? 
— are  universal."  His  gesture  amplified  his  smile. 
"And  what  a  charming  play,  wasn't  it?  As  old  as 
all  the  hills,  but  so  lightly  and  surely  done!" 

Olive's  thoughts  were  rapidly  moving,  warmed  with 
the  warmth  of  Rivaudiere's  enthusiasm.  She  could 
even  fancy  that  her  attitude,  in  the  garden  chair,  grew 
a  little  finer,  that  her  head  rose  more  delicately  and 
that  her  hands,  in  their  long  gloves,  crossed  in  her 
lap  with  a  deeper  repose.  But  his  last  phrase,  in  its 
easy  transition  to  the  intrusion  of  another  note,  caught 
her  with  a  touch  of  astonishment. 

"Ah — I  think  I  remember!"  she  paused.  "Once  I 
turned — to  lift  my  cloak,  or  for  some  such  reason — and 
I  caught  sight  of  you.  You  were  about  two  rows 

[236] 


ASCENT 

behind,  I  believe?  I  remember  noticing  how  a  very 
fair  Frenchman  stands  out  in  a  crowd.  I  think,"  her 
amusement  was  full  of  ease,  "there  was  a  lady  with 
you." 

Young  Rivaudiere  answered  immediately  and  dis 
tinctly.  "There  was — and  a  charming  one." 

Olive's  thought  paused  again.  She  had  never  before 
heard  quite  this  competence  of  tone.  One  of  the  finest 
of  Father  Ames's  qualities,  in  her  view,  had  been  his 
finish  and  his  command  of  every  form  of  human 
exchange.  She  recognised  this  as  different.  Nothing 
she  had  before  called  ease  equalled  this  intellectual 
agility  which  took  the  forms  of  a  courtesy.  Rivau- 
diere's  last  words  were  as  impersonal  as  the  pleasure 
he  had  expressed  in  the  play,  a  moment  before.  But 
she  realised  that  they  were  meant  both  to  guide  her 
and  to  warn  her,  and  that  his  companion  on  the  pre 
ceding  evening  had  been  a  person  who  both  deserved 
recognition  and  for  whom  he  insisted  on  it. 

He  was  meanwhile  bending  forward  again,  with  his 
voice  returned  to  its  earlier  key. 

"Of  course,  you  Americans  are  always  amazing,  and 
you  must  know  it!  Your  facility's  part  of  your  beauty. 
You  learn  a  nation  as  you  pick  up  an  accent;  but 
you  .  .  .  !  You  seemed  to  me,  last  night,  the  epitome 
of  all  of  you!"  He  laughed.  "I  said  to  the  lady  I 
was  with — and  who  is  a  person  all  penetration — that 
you  were  more, — that  you  were  the  epitome  of  all  the 
women  I'd  ever  seen.  Your  rarity,  the  vivacity  of 
your  intelligence — ah,  one  gets  those  things  even  from 
the  back  of  your  neck!" 

Olive's  smile  showed.  "Your  calculations  are  too 
rapid  to  be  profound.  If  you'd  stopped  to  think,  you'd 

[237] 


ASCENT 

never  have  mentioned  such  a  conclusion  about  one 
woman  to  another!" 

Rivaudiere's  gesture  seemed  to  her  to  mark  the 
boundaries  of  her  narrower  sophistication.  "Ah,  but  to 
such  a  woman  as  I  had  the  pleasure  to  be  with,  one 
mentions  everything!  And  Devon;  every  time  I  see 
him  he  seems  to  me  only  more  himself,  more  intact, 
more  firm — and  yet  more  feeling.  We've  all,  in  my 
family,  the  highest  regard  for  him.  My  sister  asked 
me  about  him  and  you  only  the  other  day;  and  for  her, 
in  her  cinema-like  life,  to  remember  anyone — !" 

"If  John  told  you  anything,  on  the  way  here,  he  must 
have  told  you  how  I've  read  your  sister.  The  first 
volume  of  her  poems  I  ran  across  was  like  a  sudden 
glimpse  of  all  the  countries  of  the  world;  and  my 
youth — "  her  shoulders  rose  and  fell — "wasn't  so  full 
of  those  brilliant  accidents!" 

Rivaudiere  regarded  her  for  an  instant  more  closely. 
"Wasn't  it?  You  weren't  of  New  York,  like  the  Devons 
— that  I  remember  hearing  my  mother  say;  and  to 
look  at  you — one  sees  you  blooming,  like  a  flower  that's 
very  pale  and  yet  very  strong,  out  of  some  cold  spot 
in  the  northern  country!" 

Olive  shook  her  head.  "You're  fatally  wrong.  Yes, 
it  was  a  cold  enough  and  bare  enough  place,  and  in  a 
hard,  bitter  climate;  but  I  never  bloomed.  No,  no! 
I  grew  angrily  and  savagely,  with  every  man's  hand 
against  me  and  my  hand  against  every  man's.  You 
see,  I've  not  the  usual  woman's  temptation  to  see  my 
beginning  as  extraordinary  or  unusual."  Her  eyes 
lingered  for  a  second  on  his.  "I'm  as  much  a  realist, 
in  my  way,  as  your  sister  is  in  hers." 

"Oh,  my  sister  .  .  .  !  But  she  has  done  what  all 
[238] 


ASCENT 

realists  do  at  the  last;  she  had  been  tricked  into  a 
realistic  romanticism." 

"Well,  I  shall  never  be,"  said  Olive  clearly.  "But 
it's  my  disadvantage  that  it  doesn't  matter  what  I 
am;  and  Madame  de  Rives's  advantage  is  that  she's 
great." 

"But  surely  you  know  it — that  you've  the  great 
quality!" 

Rivaudiere's  exclamation  broke  from  him  with  such 
warmth  that  she  felt  the  stir  of  it.  She  bent  forward, 
following  with  her  eyes  the  stretch  of  the  converging 
walks  and  the  bright  figures  which  thronged  them,  and 
with  her  look  rising  to  the  golden  faun  of  the  trees  and 
the  clear  still  sky. 

"Have  I?  Or  isn't  it  rather  true  that  it  has  me; 
that  I'm  the  victim,  as  everyone  with  the  desire  for 
experience  is  always  the  victim?"  She  waited  for  a 
second,  as  if  she  permitted  him  a  further  step  in  her 
confidence.  "I  must  admit  to  you  that  I've  never  felt 
a  more  intimate  loneliness  than  I  have  already  felt, 
here,  in  Paris." 

"Loneliness?     And  why?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "You  are  all  marvellous  and 
brilliant  and  secure.  Even  a  few  hours  have  taught  me 
that.  But  what  good  does  that  do  me, — I,  who  want 
so  much  that  I  never  get  anything?" 

"You  say  you  want  so  much?"  Rivaudiere  broke  in; 
his  interest  now,  beneath  his  admiration,  was  undeni 
able. 

"I  want  everything,"  she  exclaimed;  she  was  con 
scious  that  she  had  grown  a  shade  paler  and  that  her 
pallor  must  be  doubly  exquisite,  as  he  saw  it  against  the 
open  stretch  of  western  sky.  "There's  no  boundary,  no 

[239] 


ASCENT 

nationality,  no  field  left,  when  one  wants  all  I  want. 
Oh,  I  shall  have  a  taste  of  life  here,  as  I've  had  it 
in  New  York,  as  I  had  it  in  my  childhood — and  a 
taste  only.  That's  the  only  thing  that's  great  about 
me — my  avidity." 

"But  can't  you,  here,  satisfy  it — your  avidity?" 

"No—"  she  hesitated.  "I'm  better  than  that.  I 
know  too  much,  you  see,  to  be  able  to  satisfy  it;  and 
France  has  already  shown  me,"  she  chose  her  phrase, 
"all  I  want  and  all  I  shall  never  have." 

"Ah,  my  dear  Mrs.  Devon,  I  told  you  you  were  a 
miracle  .  .  ." 

He  paused,  and  she  felt  his  look  on  her  half-averted 
cheek.  She  shared  his  silence  for  a  second  before 
she  spoke  again. 

"It's  absurd,  isn't  it — the  lack  of  any  sense  of  fitness 
in  fate!  Here  John  and  I  come  to  Paris  for  a  few 
months,  for  him  to  work  and  for  me  to  educate  myself 
in  all  I  don't  know.  It  sounds  simple  enough.  Yet 
underneath  there  are  always  lying  the  great  facts 
about  ourselves  —  so  near  the  surface,  so  terribly 
unescapable.  Absurder  still,"  she  turned  back  to  him, 
"you  who  came  to  see  me  as  a  dull  duty,  to  give  me 
addresses  and  to  do  me  the  small  services  one  does 
to  travellers,  find  yourself  talking  not  to  a  person  but 
to  a  human  being!" 

She  waited.  The  last  light  was  showing  on  the 
bright  parterres  and  the  clock  over  the  Senate  Chamber 
struck  six.  Behind  her  she  could  hear  the  drip  of  the 
Medici  fountain,  against  the  deep  stir  of  the  city  and 
the  long  flow  of  the  traffic.  For  the  first  time,  in  weeks 
so  innumerable  that  they  stretched  back  to  her  hours 
with  Father  Ames,  she  felt  a  sudden  consciousness  of 

[240] 


ASCENT 

the  vivacity  of  her  intelligence  and  the  secure  power 
of  her  personality.  By  one  of  her  quick  reversions 
of  thought,  she  found  herself  transported  across  the 
intervening  years  and  at  the  end  of  a  thread  of 
recollection  which  had  spun  out  beyond  her  present 
consciousness.  She  could  remember  the  still  penetra 
tion  of  the  vivid  winter  day  and  see  the  sparkle  of  the 
illumined  snow,  and  feel  that  her  eyes  were  wide  and 
smarting  from  her  unaccustomed  tears.  Across  the 
road  lay  the  Ware  churchyard,  and  she  and  Devon 
stood  for  a  moment,  indecisively,  at  the  Lacy  gate. 
From  this  point  of  dissection  she  could  see  that  she 
must  have  been  very  young  and  maladroit  in  her  deal 
ing  with  him;  but  it  remained  in  her  mind  the  first 
occasion  when  she  had  made  use  of  her  emotion  to 
exert  an  influence  and  determine  a  tribute. 

"And  now,"  the  inner  stir  of  her  face  faded  in  her 
smile,  "I  shall  get  you  to  fulfil  your  promise  to  John, 
and  see  me  into  a  cab." 

It  took  Rivaudiere  a  moment,  she  realised,  in  spite 
of  his  own  rapidity,  to  follow  her  lead  and  to  rise. 

"Miracles  can't  wander  in  cabs  alone!"  his  lightness 
met  her  own.  "No — I  insist!  I  must  be  allowed  to  see 
you  home.  You  can  do  amusing  things  like  sitting  here 
in  the  Luxembourg,  but  you  cannot  do  mad  things,  like 
getting  lost.  Ah,  you  Americans  are  so  courageous;  but 
the  trouble  is  that  you  don't  know  what  to  be  afraid 
of,  so  that  your  courage  is  no  virtue  to  you  ...  ! " 


[241] 


XIX 

IN  the  next  weeks,  Olive  frequently  told  Rene 
de  la  Rivaudiere,  with  her  restless  glance  turning 
to  him,  that  the  chance  which  had  thrown  him  in 
her  path  had  meant  her  to  see  in  him  all  of  France. 
As  the  autumn  drew  itself  out  and  lengthened  into  the 
first  winter  days,  her  apprehension  of  Paris,  of  the 
nation,  of  its  stored  treasures,  of  the  clear  simplicity  of 
its  actions  and  the  amazing  intricacy  of  richness  in 
their  results,  ran  side  by  side  with  her  knowledge  of 
his  quick  charm,  of  the  gesture  which  every  one  of  his 
words  contained  and  with  the  perpetual  significances 
in  his  smile. 

He  was  constantly  at  her  door  and  in  her  motor,  with 
an  easy  persistency  which,  he  didn't  disguise  from  her, 
was  permissible  only  because  she  was  a  foreigner.  He 
had  begun  to  be  with  her  in  her  first  days  of  strange 
ness,  when  Paris  had  looked  at  her,  she  felt,  as  exteri 
orly  as  she  looked  at  it;  and  as  their  companionship 
deepened  and  grew,  her  surroundings  had  in  their 
turn  grown  both  closer  and  wider  to  her.  Rivaudiere 
had,  even  at  the  first,  laughed  with  her  over  the  dif 
ferences  in  her  errand  from  that  of  the  usual  person. 
She  wasn't  looking  for  the  highest  manifestation  of 
pleasure,  either  in  the  large  or  in  the  details  of  theatres, 
shops,  and  food.  Nor  was  she  set  persistently  on  the 
acquirement  of  a  culture  such  as  so  many  of  her  com 
patriots  were  pursuing  with  what  Rivaudiere  cited  as  a 
cruelty  of  relentlessness.  She  wanted  the  Sorbonne 
as  little  as  she  wanted  the  races.  What  she  was 

[242] 


ASCENT 

in  search  of  was  a  profounder  information.  "I  want 
it  to  teach  me  myself,"  she  often  told  him,  as  they 
turned,  on  the  bright  chilly  mornings,  between  the  pale 
brilliance  of  the  Tuileries  walks,  or  saw  the  stars,  at 
night,  over  the  golden  Invalides  dome;  "I've  always 
been  aware  of  my  force — oh,  forever.  But  it's  been  an 
irresponsible  force.  Here,  you're  all  intelligence,  and 
your  intelligence  can  teach  me  that  science  of  person 
ality  I  want  most  to  know." 

Rivaudiere's  eyes  never  failed  in  their  admiration; 
but  neither  did  he  fail  in  the  note  which,  in  their  first 
talk,  he  had  sounded.  His  growing  intimacy  with  her 
never  lost  sight  of  his  criticism,  in  the  light  flavour 
of  his  personalities.  He  would  readily  rejoin,  to  such 
observations,  that  she  was  feeling  the  stimulation  of 
Paris  so  intelligently  because  she  herself  was  nothing 
but  intelligent. 

"Nothing?"  She  threw  the  question  to  him  one 
afternoon  in  her  open  car,  with  her  eyes  bright  with 
amusement  over  the  soft  fauns  and  browns  of  her 
sables. 

"Nothing,"  he  retorted,  with  his  inerrant  confidence. 
"You're  perfectly  ignorant  of  all  but  your  mind.  Your 
ignorance  is  so  vast  that  it  is  complete." 

"But  after  all  my  intelligence  is  radically  me,"  she 
had  persisted.  "It  must  in  itself  teach  me." 

"No — it's  not  a  personal  intelligence.  It's  a  mag 
nificently  egoistic  one — you  know  the  only  virtue  of  a 
poor  devil  like  me  is  that  I'm  frank! — but  it  hasn't  the 
quality  of  personality.  It  is  still  combatting,  imposing, 
insisting.  It  doesn't  simply  exist." 

"Like  Madame  de  Rives's?"  she  suggested. 

"Perfectly — like  my  sister's.  And  against  all  this  old 
[243] 


ASCENT 

slow  world  of  ours,  which  hasn't  your  facile  American 
enthusiasm,  you're  measuring  your  egoism.  Some 
day,"  he  made  his  usual  gesture,  "perhaps  you'll  cease 
to  measure  and  really  be." 

"Time  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it!"  she 
broke  out,  with  her  sudden  frown.  She  was  always 
puzzled,  in  view  of  his  persistent  care  to  keep  the  flash 
and  answer  of  their  talks  light  above  the  variety  of 
their  suggestions,  to  feel  in  herself  a  lack  of  any  corres 
ponding  lightness.  "What  you  miss  in  me  may  come 
to  pass  in  a  second ! " 

He  shook  his  head.  "No,  my  dear  lady — that  would 
mean  you  died.  We  know  too  much  about  life — it  never 
does  those  things.  Death  alone  might  give  you  such 
an  initiation.  I've  seen  the  war,  you  see;  ah,  it's  a 
sad  enough  thing  to  have  survived  it.  And  one  does 
not  want  you,"  his  smile  met  hers,  "to  die  just  yet." 

He  was  never  more  pointedly  personal  than  this,  in 
their  prolonged  talks  and  their  free  wanderings 
together;  but,  as  a  nascent  sensitiveness  in  her  felt, 
all  his  attitude  to  her  was  a  personal  one.  At  first 
she  had  expected  from  him  some  of  the  signs  of  a 
warmer  admiration  such  as  she  had  accustomed  her 
self  to  demand.  Yet  his  avoidance  of  them  was  perfect. 
He  would  pay  her,  and  in  anyone's  and  everyone's 
presence,  tributes  fantastic  in  their  gaiety  of  extrava 
gance.  She  felt  them  bodiless  things,  light  decorations 
used  to  trim  his  easy  talk;  and  at  the  same  time  a 
deeper  current  ran  beneath  them,  of  the  assurance  of 
an  inner  feeling  which  was  never  exposed.  For  the  first 
time  in  her  experience  she  began  to  be  aware  of  a 
light  manipulation  in  a  highly  personal  relation. 
Rivaudiere's  very  ardour  was  composed  of  shadings 

[244] 


ASCENT 

which  ended  in  a  smile,  as  if  his  civilisation  had  taught 
him  that  the  chief  charm  of  such  a  situation  was  in 
the  play  of  its  uncertainties,  while  all  its  circum 
stances  drove  forward  to  a  certain  end. 

This  compactness  of  form  seemed  to  her,  in  her 
imagined  parallel  between  him  and  his  race,  to  be  the 
acutest  manifestation  of  the  French  power.  She  had 
never  imagined  that  living  could  be  so  a  matter  of 
the  intelligence  as  it  was  in  his  hands  or  that  every 
thought  could  have  so  sharp  a  point.  There  had  been 
nothing  lax  or  flaccid  about  old  Lacy's  mind.  But 
its  hardness  had  been  without  shape  or  outline  and  its 
intention  had  all  gone  into  bitterness.  Rivaudiere's 
brain  had  the  tempered  fmenesss  of  a  worked  metal 
and  the  resiliency  of  life.  It  was  not  congealed  by 
prejudice  or  weakened  by  violence.  As  she  listened 
to  the  quick  comments  he  threw  out,  on  experience, 
on  art,  on  the  human  relations,  interspersed  with  his 
embroidery  of  speculation  and  ending  always  in  the 
finish  of  a  conclusion,  she  felt  that  she  had  never 
before  been  aware  of  an  intellectuality  which  so  repre 
sented  the  finest  delicacy  of  sophistication  and  the 
fusion  of  charm  with  mind. 

Her  sense  of  her  own  potentialities  had  never  been 
more  deeply  stirred  to  action.  Every  circumstance 
of  her  days  added  to  her  conviction  of  her  capacity. 
She  was  aware  of  the  sensitive  rapidity  of  her  apprecia 
tion,  in  the  face  of  whatever  picture  or  building  Rivau- 
diere  took  her  to  see,  of  the  aptness  of  her  quick 
comments  and  of  the  ease  with  which  her  thoughts 
made  their  allusions.  The  aridity  of  her  youth  seemed 
to  her  to  have  bloomed  in  a  sudden  efflorescence. 
Under  this  sunny  light  even  her  old  resentment  of  her 

[245] 


ASCENT 

restrictions  grew  kinder,  because  the  long  days  at 
Ware,  when  she  had  so  tenaciously  nourished  in  her 
self  the  effort  at  preparation  for  future  opportunities, 
had  now  their  use  and  consequence.  Her  reading 
and  her  studies  with  her  grandfather  gave  her  horizon 
a  present  enrichment  and  extension.  All  her  respon 
siveness  rose  to  the  tests  of  so  highly  organised  a 
system  of  living  and  of  so  intimate  and  extended  a 
consciousness  of  vivacity.  The  clarity  in  the  morn 
ings,  the  slant  of  the  thin  grey  rains,  the  scent  of 
the  flowers  in  the  vendors'  carts,  all  the  diversity  of 
a  scene  which  was  all  movement,  quickened  not  only 
her  beauty  but  her  thought;  and  the  stimulation  was 
constantly  personified  in  the  light  sure  pressure  of 
Rivaudiere's  feeling. 

It  had  come  to  her,  with  the  suddenness  of  sur 
prise,  that  the  look  which  was  always  expectantly  in  his 
face  held  an  element  which  was  incomprehensible  to  her. 
For  his  admiration  she  had  been  prepared  since  the 
moment  of  their  meeting;  and  she  had  seen  it  warm 
and  deepen  to  a  devotion  with  her  general  expectancy 
that  it  was  her  due.  But  the  simplicity  of  its  feeling, 
as  it  grew,  had  come  to  her  with  a  slight  shock.  For 
all  his  tenuous  phrases  and  the  gay  involutions  of  his 
wit,  Rivaudiere  confronted  her  with  a  complete  direct 
ness.  He  never  pressed  her  or  urged  her  in  words  to 
recognise  the  actualities  of  his  sentiment;  but  she  had 
never  fancied  closer  intimacies  than  lay  in  his  assump 
tions,  and  at  times  all  her  attention  set  in  her  attempt 
to  discern,  not  them  or  their  outcome,  but  herself. 

It  was  instantaneous  with  her  that,  as  soon  as  she 
had  apprehended,  through  Rivaudiere's  response  to 
her,  her  own  lack  of  any  physical  prescience,  she  had 

[246] 


ASCENT 

set  herself  to  get  it.  She  began  to  discover  what  most 
readily  warmed  his  eyes  and  his  voice,  and  to  stimulate 
the  signs  of  his  appreciation.  Latent  in  her  mind  there 
remained  a  constant  astonishment  that  so  vast  and 
rich  a  field  of  human  incidence  should  have  stirred  so 
little  of  her  curiosity.  From  the  night  when  she  had 
stood  on  the  little  porch  at  Ware  and  had  felt  the 
changed  quality  in  Devon's  touch,  she  had  shrunk  from 
every  manifestation  of  feeling,  not  because  of  the  form 
it  took  but  because  it  seemed  to  her  an  inner  exposure 
and  a  sacrifice  of  her  own  invulnerability.  Was  it  not 
that  which  she  chiefly  feared,  she  asked  herself,  and 
which  made  the  mystery  of  her  perpetual  separateness 
from  any  deep  sentiment  of  emotion?  She  had  begun  to 
admit  to  herself  that  the  sense  of  her  ignorances  more 
and  more  weighed  on  her;  that  she  realised  them  with 
an  increasing  force,  and  with  an  increasing  intimacy 
of  exasperation. 

One  night  she  and  Rivaudiere  had  gone  together  to 
a  concert  at  the  Trocadero,  from  which  Devon  had 
at  the  last  moment  excused  himself;  and  when  she 
found  herself  driving  home,  with  Rivaudiere  beside 
her,  this  sensation  of  her  isolation  from  the  usual 
human  experience  had  suddenly  gripped  and  held  her. 
The  concert  had  been  moving  and  lovely;  and  in  the 
little  car,  as  it  moved  smoothly  through  the  dark 
streets,  she  felt  less  their  companionship  and  the  charm 
and  amusement  of  their  exchange,  than  her  own 
extreme  separateness. 

Rivaudiere  was  evidently  touched  by  some  similar 
current.  His  talk  gradually  died  and  it  was  solely  in 
the  fluctuating  glow  at  the  end  of  his  cigarette  and  in 
the  steadiness  with  which  his  profile  was  turned,  so 

[247] 


ASCENT 

that  he  faced  the  passing  lights,  that  she  was  aware 
of  him.  His  bare  hand  lay  on  the  fur  rug  drawn 
across  his  knees.  Her  eyes  fell  to  it;  and  with  the 
touch  of  her  reflections,  she  abruptly  turned,  with  a 
sharp  motion,  to  the  opposite  window. 

She  was  conscious  that,  with  the  unusual  accent  in 
her  action,  Rivaudiere's  attention  had  been  caught  and 
deflected  from  whatever  absorbed  his  thoughts. 

"Are  you  tired?"  he  asked,  with  an  unaccustomed 
brevity. 

She  shook  her  head.  In  her  muteness  she  felt  his 
scrutiny  closer. 

"Because  sometimes  I  wonder — "  he  made  a  gesture 
to  amplify  his  words — "how  it  is  that  you're  not 
fatigued  to  death!  Facts,  facts,  facts;  and  never  a 
moment's  digestion  of  them."  His  voice  sounded 
ironical  in  the  darkened  car.  "And  is  that  what, 
at  the  end,  is  going  to  be  the  sum  and  substance  of 
you?" 

To  her  immeasurable  surprise — perhaps,  she  thought, 
with  an  instinctive  impulse  to  explain  it,  because  of  the 
music  they  had  heard,  or  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  or 
her  tightened  nerves — she  felt  the  tears  hang  for  a 
second  on  her  lashes.  "Don't  ask  me  that,"  she  broke 
out,  in  a  sharper  note  than  she  had  ever  used  with 
him.  "Don't  you  see  that  I  disbelieve  in  myself  most 
of  all?" 

Rivaudiere  shook  his  head.  "Your  scepticism  has 
none  of  the  quality  of  real  scepticism.  It  does  not 
make  you  happier,  or  for  the  matter  of  that,  sadder 
—more  careless  or  riper.  Even  your  disbelief  is  dis 
belief,  now."  He  waited.  "Is  it  ever  to  be  different 
— I  ask  myself!" 

[248] 


ASCENT 

"No  one  has  ever  really  wanted  it  to  be  different," 
she  said  impetuously. 

"No,  no!  I  must  contradict  you!  You  yourself 
have  never  wanted  it  to  be  different;  and  until  you 
reach  that  point — !  Now—  "  his  face  again  turned  to 
her — "your  eyes  have  no  thought  in  them.  The 
psychological  belle  au  bols  dormant,  isn't  it?  The 
difference  between  a  strong  odour  and  a  scent  with  a 
mystery,  between  mere  food  and  flavour — that's  what 
your  difference  is!" 

The  sense  she  had  constantly  had,  since  their  first 
hour  together,  of  a  reserve  in  him  which  amounted  to  a 
commitment  and  to  which  he  never  unbarred  the  short 
est  step,  leapt,  for  some  sudden  reason,  into  life. 

"You  have  evidently  known  very  much  of  some  one," 
her  voice  had  its  keenest  tartness,  "who  has  all  these 
admirable  qualities ! " 

"Ah,  thank  God — yes!"  said  Rivaudiere  instantly. 
"Life  would  be  too  dull  without  that!  But  I've  never 
known  anyone,"  his  smile,  she  divined,  had  in  the 
obscurity  a  suddenly  changed  quality,  "who  was  as 
lovely  as  you!" 

She  was  conscious  of  an  intense  wish  to  speak,  either 
to  give  him  the  lash  of  her  resentment  or  to  make  him 
with  her  hand,  which  lay  so  close  to  his,  a  motion  of  the 
appeal  which  ran  throughout  her.  But  the  turbulence 
of  her  thoughts  held  her  dumb;  and  all  she  could  do 
was  to  raise  her  head  and  set  her  lips  with  purpose. 

Devon,  from  the  first,  had  been  with  her  very  little. 
It  had  dawned  on  her,  bit  by  bit,  that  his  feeling  for 
Paris  was  something  which  he  kept  apart  and  within 
himself.  He  disappeared  for  hours  at  a  time,  and  she 

[249] 


ASCENT 

would  discover  that  he  had  been  wandering  amongst 
the  print  shops,  exchanging  recollections  with  some 
of  his  friends  who  had  never  left  the  rue  Bonaparte, 
or  drinking  his  afternoon  coffee  under  an  extended  awn 
ing  on  the  boulevard  and  watching  the  river  of  its 
population  flow.  Like  all  of  his  compatriots  who  had 
studied  here  and  received  from  Paris  their  first  enthu 
siasms,  he  had  continued  to  regard  it  as  the  author 
and  instrument  of  all  their  culture.  He  told  Olive  that 
his  work  on  his  designs  was  going  well,  and  this  was, 
in  these  days,  the  measure  of  his  confidences.  But 
sometimes,  in  the  Louvre  or  before  a  mutilated  bit  of 
sculpture  in  the  Cluny,  the  quiver  of  response  across 
his  face  startled  even  her  inattention.  It  was  gone  in 
less  than  a  second;  but  she  felt  its  imprint  in  his 
silences.  His  original  love  of  the  fineness  of  the  city 
and  of  its  immemorial  beauty  of  thought  and  aspect 
seemed  now  to  measure  itself  against  his  maturity, 
and  to  enlighten  his  ripeness  more  than  it  had  ever 
stimulated  his  youth. 

If  she  felt  the  new  force  in  his  muteness  she  was 
never  able  to  define  it.  She  was  becoming  more  and 
more  aware  of  the  division  between  his  superficial  con 
cessions  to  her  and  the  integrity  with  which  he  guarded 
his  own  opinions.  He  was  unfailing  in  his  careless  good 
temper,  he  played  with  the  baby  each  day  and  saw 
that  her  little  salon  was  full  of  flowers;  but  so  far  as 
any  expression  of  his  thoughts  went,  its  absence  was 
unfailing. 

She  had  shut  her  book  one  rainy  late  afternoon, 
when  he  came  in  from  a  matinee  at  the  Franc.ais 
to  find  her  still  in  front  of  their  little  fire;  and  as  she 
looked  up  at  the  closed  mask  of  his  expression  she 

[250] 


ASCENT 

was  conscious  of  a  deeper  incapacity  than  she  had  yet 
realised  in  regard  to  him,  and  a  correspondent  irrita 
tion  of  her  mind.  It  was  one  of  the  few  days  when 
she  had  not  had  a  message  or  a  note  from  Rivaudiere; 
and  the  suspicion  had  crossed  her  mind,  when  Devon 
took  up  the  theatre  list  at  luncheon  and  said  he  was 
off  for  an  afternoon  with  Corneille,  that  he  had  been 
so  readily  sure  that  Polyeucte  and  Pauline  would  bore 
her  because  he  wanted  to  be  alone. 

Nothing  ever  puzzled  her  more  than  her  sense  that 
there  might  be  something  wearing  in  the  extreme  con 
centration  in  which  she  existed;  and  for  a  few  seconds, 
with  her  head  thrown  back  against  the  cushion  of  her 
chair  and  her  fingers  still  holding  apart  the  pages  of  the 
old  brown  Montaigne  Rivaudiere  had  brought  her  the 
day  before,  she  searched  Devon's  face. 

She  listened  absently  while  he  declined  her  sugges 
tion  of  tea,  observed  how  wise  she  had  been  not  to 
go  out  in  such  a  rain,  and  said  he  was  off  to  his  room 
to  put  in  an  hour  on  his  designs,  before  dinner;  then 
she  broke  into  one  of  her  sudden  exclamations. 

"Sometimes  I  wonder  if  in  the  last  weeks  you've  even 
seen  me!" 

She  was  definitely  aware,  as  she  spoke,  that  her 
purpose  was  not  so  much  to  elicit  a  reply  from  him  as 
to  stir  his  interest.  He  turned  slowly — she  had  noticed 
that  his  movements  were  always  more  deliberate  when 
he  was  surprised — and  with  his  hand  on  the  door  he 
looked  back  at  her,  across  the  little  room. 

"I  might  answer,  have  you  been  here  to  see?" 

Olive's  gesture  had  a  sweep  in  it  like  one  of  old 
Lacy's  movements.  "And  you'd  also  find  such  a  vague 
phrase,  I  suppose,  to  explain  away  Rene  de  la  Rivau- 

[251! 


ASCENT 

diere?     I  suppose  he's  not  been  a  reality,  either?" 

Devon  laughed.  "No,  my  dear,  I'm  not  sure  that  he 
has."  He  broke  off,  with  the  irony  of  his  eyes  on  her 
for  a  second.  "Rivaudiere's  got  too  much  the  tech 
nique  of  such  situations  to  make  them  real." 

"But  you're  not  sure  that  I  have?"  She  put  her 
retort  in  the  form  of  a  question. 

He  waited  before  he  answered.  "You're  using 
weapons  you  don't  understand;  that's  the  reason 
they're  dangerous." 

His  tone  was  so  implicative  that  she  felt  her  annoy 
ance  quicken  under  it.  He  was  always  puzzling  her 
by  his  arrival  at  certainties  which  she  had  only  half 
divined.  She  hesitated  for  a  second  and  then  drew  an 
opened  note  from  her  book  and  tossed  it  over  to  him. 
"It  doesn't  seem  so  very  mysterious,  when  one  reads 
that!" 

Devon  ran  through  the  letter.  He  kept  it  in  his 
hands  as  he  ended,  with  a  brief  laugh. 

"Well, — I  was  more  nearly  right  than  I  thought! 
The  old  mother  has  actually  packed  her  up  to  Paris 
— and  they  detest  to  leave  the  country  in  winter — to 
look  you  over.  And  you'll  see,  in  consequence,  one 
of  the  most  interesting  women  in  Europe.  Oh,  don't 
mistake  her  flattery !  'My  brother  writes  such  delight 
ful  accounts  of  seeing  you' — and  all  that!  Her  end's 
simple  enough." 

"Her  end,"  said  Olive  tartly,  "will,  I'm  afraid,  have 
to  be  mine." 

"Perhaps;  but  she'll  find  a  way,"  he  waited  again,-— 
"to  let  you  know  its  necessary  limitations.  Americans 
are  too  romantic  for  Frenchwomen  to  allow  the  men 
of  their  families  to  lose  their  heads  over  them,  as  they 

[252] 


ASCENT 

might  think  it  healthy  and  educative  for  them  to  lose 
their  heads  over  Europeans." 

She  raised  her  brows.  "My  dear  John,  I'm  not 
accustomed  to  impose  on  people  anything  less  than 
my  own  terms." 

"Ah,  but  here  you're  dealing  with  a  system;  and  an 
individual,  you  know,  against  a  system  shows  up  as 
rather  pale!"  His  tone  was  as  easy  as  he  had  always 
lately  made  it.  "No,  I  shan't  go  to  see  her  with  you, 
in  spite  of  her  elaborate  allusions  to  me.  I  don't  think 
I  want  to  see  Ghislaine  de  la  Rivaudiere  again!"  His 
eyes  half  closed.  "When  I  was  over  here,  just  grown, 
and  she  a  little  more  than  just  grown,  she  seemed  to 
me  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  Her  first  poems 
were  being  published;  and  I  remember,"  he  smiled  at 
his  recollection,  "that  I  didn't  know  whether  to  be  more 
astonished  at  their  extreme  feeling  or  their  extreme 
dispassion.  She  was  the  first  great  human  work  of 
art  I'd  ever  seen;  no — I  don't  want  to  repeat  it." 

Olive  had  risen,  as  he  spoke.  She  stretched  out  her 
hand,  as  he  ended,  and  followed  with  her  finger  the 
lines  and  curves  of  the  cloth  of  his  sleeve  as  she  stood 
beside  him.  Her  touch  went  from  his  shoulder  to  his 
elbow  and  from  his  elbow  to  his  wrist,  and  slipped  over 
his  hand  to  linger  for  an  instant. 

"Why  on  earth  you  ever  cared  for  me  .  .  .  !"  she 
said  absently,  with  one  of  her  quick  sighs. 

She  was  aware  that  Devon's  motionlessness  changed 
suddenly  to  intention,  and  for  the  quickest  second  she 
felt  his  lips  on  the  parting  of  her  hair.  All  he  said, 
however,  was  that  he'd  planned  to  spend  the  next  day 
at  Chartres  and  that  she  must  make  his  excuses  to 
Madame  de  Rives. 

[253] 


ASCENT 

"You're  extraordinary  in  your  knowledge,  John — !" 
she  broke  out  impetuously.  "Of  Rivaudiere,  of  every 
thing  about  me!" 

"Yes,"  he  put  it  dryly;  "I  rather  think  I  am.  But 
I've  my  own  ideas,  you  know.  You  can  follow  your 
line  all  you  please — but  I  must  follow  mine.  You 
don't  know  anything  about  my  line,  do  you?  Except, 
vaguely  enough,  that  it's  you!  You  don't  know  that 
I  shall  always  refuse  everything  except  exactly  what  I 
want  from  you.  No,"  he  paused — "it's  not  that  I  know 
very  much,  but  that  I  divine  a  great  deal!" 

He  took  up  a  long  fall  of  yellowish  lace  from  the 
neck  of  her  tea  gown  and  drew  it  slowly  through  his 
fingers. 

"My  dear  Olive,  in  these  weeks  you've  been  extraor 
dinary — never  more  extraordinary."  He  dropped  the 
lace  he  held.  "But  perhaps  the  reason  you've  been  so 
was  that  everyone  expected  you  to  be.  .  .  ." 


[254] 


XX 

THE  next  afternoon,  when  she  looked  up  at  the 
ornate   front   of   the   hotel   on   the   Cours   la 
Reine,  Olive  realised  that  Devon's  natural  grasp 
of  shadings  had  displaced  her  confidence. 

If  Madame  de  Rives  had  lived  in  one  of  the  dim  old 
houses  of  the  older  Paris,  she  would  have  seemed  less 
confusing  to  deal  with.  But  in  a  quarter  the  fashion 
of  which  was  as  evident  as  its  luxury,  Olive  felt  her 
traditions  allied  with  the  immediacy  of  the  day.  At 
the  moment  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  would  be  less 
at  a  disadvantage  before  an  inherited  knowledge  than 
before  the  more  surface  sophistication  which  would 
criticise  her  conduct  and  discount  her  appearance.  She 
vaguely  recollected,  and  with  a  sense  of  wonder  as  to 
what  they  could  produce,  some  of  the  facts  she  had 
picked  up  about  the  Rives's  household — its  perfect 
outer  correctness  and  what  were  said  to  be  its  private 
conformities,  that  Rives's  had  had,  from  his  mother 
who  had  been  a  Roumanian  of  royal  stock,  a  princely 
fortune,  and  kept  at  Chantilly  a  racing  stable  on  the 
largest  scale;  that  his  wife  had  contrived  to  create 
about  her  conduct  the  mystery  of  an  austerity  more 
unfathomable  than  any  excess,  and  that  her  verse 
was  never  more  tenuous  than  when  the  shares  in  the 
motor  company  Rives  had  exploited  and  controlled 
under  her  influence  were  rising  to  a  more  fantastic 
value. 

To  graft  this  information  on  her  suppositions  of 
[255] 


ASCENT 

what  Rivaudiere's  sister  must  be  shook  her  certainty 
for  a  moment.  Her  glance  travelled  across  to  the 
grey  winter  river,  and  between  its  expanse  and  her 
eyes  the  significance  of  the  past  weeks  composed  and 
took  on  form  and  outline.  The  delicate  pleasure  of 
her  hours  with  Rivaudiere  was  apparent  in  a  new  light; 
the  readiness  of  his  look,  beyond  the  perfect  courtesies 
of  his  consideration,  and  the  fine  formalities  which  so 
accentuated  the  eagerness  of  his  eyes.  Because  her 
possession  of  his  devotion  was  threatened,  it  assumed 
a  value  suddenly  different  from  that  which  she  had 
before  ascribed  to  it;  and  she  turned  to  the  door  with 
a  sense  of  alert  defensiveness. 

As  she  was  ushered  down  the  long  length  of  the  suc 
cessive  drawing  rooms,  she  made  out  at  once  an  immo 
bile  figure  seated  by  the  fireless  grate  in  the  farthest 
room.  Beside  it  all  her  other  impressions  were  reduced 
to  insignificance.  She  was  vaguely  aware  of  the  rich 
brown  tint  of  the  highly  waxed  floors,  of  the  magnifi 
cence  of  the  petit  point,  from  which  the  coverings  had 
evidently  just  been  removed,  and  of  the  multiple  orna 
ments  of  the  great  chandeliers,  through  their  swathings 
of  netting.  Upright  in  her  carved  chair,  with  her  back 
rigidly  straight,  Madame  de  Rives  was  facing  the  hard 
light  of  the  uncurtained  windows  with  a  fixity  of  absorp 
tion.  As  she  drew  nearer  Olive  made  out  that  she 
wore  a  dress  as  severe  as  the  single  rope  of  pearls 
clasped  at  the  top  of  her  thin  throat,  that  there  was  no 
book  on  her  lap  or  on  the  table  beside  her,  and  that 
her  hands  were  folded  and  motionless.  The  last  thing, 
in  this  hasty  scrutiny,  that  Olive  could  fancy  her  was 
surprised.  The  sound  of  approaching  steps  was  evi 
dently  permitted  to  impinge  on  her  concentration  only 

[256] 


ASCENT 

when  she  wished  it  to,  and  she  turned  her  head  only 
at  precisely  the  right  instant. 

As  she  rose,  her  small  pallid  face  stirred  gradually 
to  attention,  as  if  she  visibly  changed  her  preoccupa 
tion.  She  did  not  smile  as  she  held  out  her  brownish 
hand. 

"I  am  very  pleased  to  see  you,"  she  said  immediately, 
and  with  a  perfect  gravity,  "and  I  thank  you  for 
coming.  Will  you  sit  there?" 

There  was  a  drop  of  silence.  Across  the  few  feet 
between  them,  as  she  took  her  seat,  Olive's  eyes  set 
persistently  on  her  hostess.  She  was  rapidly  trying  to 
relate  the  circumstances  of  the  occasion — Madame  de 
Rives's  note,  the  mere  fact  of  which,  in  its  invitation, 
was  a  certain  commitment  to  cordiality,  and  the  bare 
severity  of  her  reception.  Opposite  her,  with  her  back 
still  at  the  angle  of  the  back  of  her  marquise,  Madame 
de  Rives  returned  her  look  without  the  slightest  deepen 
ing  or  warming  of  tone  and  without  the  smallest  con 
cealment  of  the  free  play  of  her  inspection.  She  made 
a  few  prescribed  observations  as  to  the  interest  which 
Paris  usually  stirred  in  Americans,  and  Americans  in 
Paris;  but  Olive  instinctively  felt  that  even  in  these 
banalities  her  mind  was  prearranged  with  the  same 
rigour  as  the  chairs  were  placed  in  juxtaposition  and 
that  the  room  lacked  the  warmth  or  welcome  of  a  fire 
and  tea. 

For  a  moment  Olive's  response  hung,  in  the  unaccus 
tomed  strangeness.  Her  very  beauty,  as  she  divined 
it  must  appear  against  the  pale  grey  taffetas  of  her 
chair,  seemed  to  droop  under  such  a  measurement.  It 
had  at  once  told  with  Madame  de  Rives — of  that  her 
prehensive  faculty  was  certain;  but  it  was  already 

[257] 


ASCENT 

catalogued  and  weighed,  and  what  existed  of  it  was 
only  its  relation  to  standards  of  which  Olive  had  no 
cognisance. 

"We  feel  it  so  particularly  fortunate,  my  mother  and 
I,  that  my  brother,  who  is  really  all  intelligence,  should 
through  this  charming  chance  of  knowing  you  have 
known  a  little  of  the  modern  America."  Madame  de 
Rives  had  as  she  spoke  the  complete  absence  of  move 
ment  which  made  a  gesture,  in  its  rare  occurrence, 
so  significant.  Her  scrutiny  played  as  fixedly  as  a 
light  in  her  dark  face.  "We  travel,  you  know,  so  badly; 
and  for  Rene  to  gain  so  much  of  America  through  you 
has  been  like  gaining  it  through  a  delightful  work 
of  literature.  You  have  an  apartment  in  the  rue  Pierre 
Charron,  I  believe.  But  do  you  not  pay  a  frightful 
price  for  it?" 

Olive  smiled,  with  her  clear  eyebrows  rising. 
"Really,  I  don't  know  that  by  our  computation  we  do. 
I  suppose  we  pay  more  than  we  ought  to  pay;  but  in 
contrast  to  the  gain  of  our  months  here,  it  is  so 
absurdly  small  a  comparison  .  .  .  Do  not  think  all 
Americans  are  mere  spendthrifts."  Her  smile  deep 
ened.  "Some  of  us  are  imaginative,  which  may  easily 
be  mistaken  for  extravagance." 

"Ah!"  said  Madame  de  Rives  vaguely.  "And  your 
husband — I  recollect  him  very  well,  when  he  was  here 
some  years  ago.  He  was  so  sympathetic  and  delightful. 
We  had  never  seen  an  American  in  the  least  like  him. 
It  must  be  a  very  vast  country,  is  it  not?  My  sister- 
in-law  had  a  friend  who  was  once  taken  by  some 
people,  of  colossal  fortune,  on  a  private  train  to  San 
Francisco.  It  was  amazing,  she  said;  one  had  even 
a  typist  to  write  one's  letters;  but  she  could  not  con- 

[258] 


ASCENT 

ceive  why  they  invited  her  to  go.  You  are  all  very 
hospitable,  are  you  not?" 

"No  more  so,  I  am  sure,"  Olive's  return  was  rapid, 
"than  your  brother  has  been  to  my  husband  and  me." 

"Yes,  Rene  is  a  dear  boy.  Yet  a  little  less  easy  than 
one  fancies,  perhaps,  to  deal  with.  And  your  mother- 
in-law?  She  and  my  mother  were  friends,  it  appears, 
in  their  girlhood,  when  they  were  at  school — not,  of 
course,  at  the  same  school.  We  cannot  afford  your 
luxuries  of  education.  Is  she  as  charming  as  ever? 
I  remember  that  once  when  your  husband  was  here, 
he  brought  from  her  to  my  mother  one  of  those 
inimitably  fine  shawls,  made  of  the  Scotch  wool.  It 
has  been  washed  now  countless  times,  and  would  you 
believe  that  it  never  shrinks!" 

Olive's  muteness  held  her  for  an  instant.  She  was 
trying  to  associate  her  interlocutress's  even  tones  with 
the  fiery  beauty  of  her  verse,  whose  glow  had  reached 
her  in  the  distant  Ware  winters.  Her  very  words,  as 
they  fell  with  the  purity  of  accent  which  means  a 
command  of  several  languages,  had,  beyond  their  mean 
ing,  their  fine  contradictions.  They  were  as  expressive 
as  her  appearance  itself.  Its  simplicities  were  so 
carefully  composed,  and  the  hand  on  which  she  wore 
only  her  wedding  ring  was  thin  with  a  sensitiveness  of 
feeling.  She  had  all  the  marks  of  the  varieties  of  an 
achieved  experience;  and  yet — Olive  thought — she 
could  talk  with  an  unsimulated  interest  in  these  terms 
and  observe  the  small  niceties  of  a  universe  in  which 
they  were  important. 

Her  instinct  of  aggression  gave  a  light  tinge  to  her 
voice. 

"My  reason  for  accepting  your  suggestion  that  I 
[259] 


ASCENT 

should  come  to-day — beyond  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
you — was  really  to  tell  you  just  that — how  much  we 
appreciate  your  brother's  kindnesses.  My  husband  has 
always  valued  their  friendship,  and  he's  been  so  parti 
cularly  glad  to  renew  it.  With  me,  of  course,"  she 
spoke  slowly,  "it's  been  different." 

"Indeed?"  Madame  de  Rives's  eyes  were  as  opaque. 
"And  how,  different?" 

"Different  because  of  the  differences,"  Olive's  answer 
was  as  prompt,  "in  his  kindness.  I  needed  perhaps 
more  help  in  understanding  things  than  my  husband; 
and  perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why  his  kindness  to  me 
has  been  special.  I've  lived,  you  see,  a  more  isolated 
life  than  most  American  women;"  her  smile  gleamed; 
"but  now,  at  last,  we  are  beginning  to  learn  the  strength 
of  our  isolation." 

"Ah!"  said  Madame  de  Rives  again.  It  was  her 
single  word.  She  held  her  position  of  impartial  atten 
tion,  with  her  fingers  as  motionless  in  her  lap.  The 
inscrutability  of  her  attitude  was  so  perfectly  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  conveyances  of  words  that  Olive  felt 
her  own  cleverness  suddenly  denuded  of  point  and 
fibre  and  useless  in  its  very  agility.  She  felt  herself 
moved  by  a  quick  touch  of  impulsiveness. 

"I  hope  you  will  realise  that,  in  the  matter  of  all 
your  brother  has  done  for  me,  I  do  very  greatly  appre 
ciate  it."  Her  words  had  the  tincture  of  her  sudden 
feeling. 

"My  brother  likes  strangers,"  said  Madame  de  Rives 
imperturbably.  "He  is  always  a  little  intrigued  by  the 
qualities  in  their  minds  which  he  does  not  understand 
— especially  if  the  stranger  is  a  lady,  and  so  charming 
as  yourself." 

[260] 


ASCENT 

The  quiver  of  obstinacy  at  the  corner  of  Olive's 
mouth  hardened.  "He  doesn't  strike  me  as  a  person 
whose  taste  in  such  matters  is  general." 

"Men  are  all  general;  the  instinct  to  be  specific 
occurs  with  them  so  rarely.  They  have,  of  course,  their 
enthusiasms —  '  her  eyes  caught  Olive's,  "and  I  am 
particularly  interested  to  see  you  because  my  mother 
and  I  have  both  understood  that  Rene  has  had  a 
very  real  enthusiasm  for  you." 

Olive  was  conscious  that  her  flush  slowly  rose,  and 
her  look  fell  to  her  hands;  she  smoothed  the  wrinkles 
of  her  long  gloves  reflectively.  "So  far  as  that  goes, 
I  don't  know — "  she  was  again  held  by  her  uncertainty. 

"Ah,  but  you  must  very  well  know — as  intelligent 
and  sympathetic  as  you  are!  And  you  must  also 
know,"  her  voice  carried  on  clearly,  "Rene's  nature. 
His  evanescence,  his  charm — for  the  moment  they  are 
inseparable.  His  personality  is  not  yet  aware  of  itself. 
Even  all  these  mad  modern  theories  that  he  has — 
Madame  de  Rives  paused,  as  if  she  selected  the  key 
of  her  continuance.  "Theories — they  tell  me  that  in 
America  everyone  has  them.  Our  forms,  I  suppose, 
transplanted.  But  do  you  ever  hold  very  long  to  one? 
That  is  what  I  say  to  Rene.  He  is  so  diverted  by  these 
intellectual  performances  of  his.  But  for  the  important 
things  of  existence,  he  is  a  more  inexorable  formalist 
than  I.  I  mention  these  things,"  her  shoulders  rose 
and  fell  with  an  imperceptible  lightness,  "because  I 
know,  as  a  woman,  how  one  builds  any  such  friendship 
as  exists  between  you  and  Rene  on  these  facts.  I 
myself,"  she  made  one  of  her  incomparably  brief  ges 
tures,  "should  not  of  course  consider  Adeline  Bray  an 
obstacle." 

[261] 


ASCENT 

All  the  insinuation  of  her  instinct  and  the  echoes 
of  Rivaudiere's  reserves  flashed,  in  a  second,  into  the 
name,  as  Olive  heard  it.  It  took  her  only  that  second 
to  smile  and  to  steady  her  look,  but  she  had  no  illusion 
that  her  response  had  been  rapid  enough  for  her  com 
panion. 

"I  don't  know  the  person  you  mention,"  she 
responded;  "nor  do  I  know  of  her." 

The  movement  of  Madame  de  Rives's  hand  was 
now  more  definite.  "But  the  odd  part  of  it  is  that  my 
mother  and  I  do;  we  know  both  the  situation,  and  her. 
An  admirable  child,  wholly  admirable.  She  has  a 
real  devotion  for  Rene.  And  a  person  of  quite  the  last 
note  of  this  new  culture.  At  her  little  apartment,  in 
the  rue  de  Seze,  they  tell  me  one  hears  the  newest 
music  .  .  .  Stravinsky,  Mor,  and  all  the  rest.  Her 
father,  too,  was  an  admirable  person — a  professor  in 
the  University  at  Rennes,  so  poor  and  with  five 
children.  This  girl  brought  up  the  little  ones,  at  the 
mother's  death,  with  an  exemplary  care.  When  the 
war  came,  of  course  she  must  needs  go  off  as  a  nurse, 
and  she  and  Rene  met.  She  is  not  of  a  distinguished 
cast,  perhaps — she  is  too  short,  too  solid,  too  dark; 
her  contours  lack  fineness;  but  such  an  eager,  rapid 
face  .  .  ." 

She  waited,  as  if  she  gave  her  words  the  emphasis 
of  a  pause;  then  her  even  tone  continued. 

"Her  good  sense  has  been  admirable,  too.  Of 
course  these  young  people  of  to-day  must  make  their 
gesture  of  freedom,  and  she  has  no  religion,  no  code, 
to  dictate  to  her.  She  and  Rene  spent  last  spring  in 
the  Pyrenees,  and  her  father  did  not  seem  to  consider 
it  other  than  a  pleasant  holiday.  .  .  .  Yes.  But  she 

[262]  ' 


ASCENT 

quite  realises  her  situation.  My  elder  brother,  you 
see,  has  no  children,  so  sooner  or  later  our  poor  Rene 
must  attach  himself  and  have  a  son.  My  mother's 
ideas  are  still  of  the  old  sort;  but  no  more  so — at 
heart — than  Rene's.  He  is  the  revolutionary  who  will 
become,  in  five  years,  a  reactionary.  And  Adeline 
understands  all  this  perfectly.  She  has  even  played 
the  violin  to  me  and  I  have  been  there  to  tea  ..." 

There  was  the  drop  of  a  final  silence.  Olive's  eyes 
had  mechanically  turned  back  to  the  vista  of  the  suc 
cessive  drawing  rooms  with  their  shrouded  gilt  con 
sols,  the  high  glint  of  a  mirror  here  and  there,  the 
long  cool  stretch  of  the  floors  and  finally,  at  the  end, 
the  grey  stone  of  the  antechamber.  Down  this 
expanse  she  could  see  advance  the  figure  which  pos 
sessed  her  thoughts,  more  vividly  than  in  actuality. 
The  looks  she  had  from  time  to  time  caught  in  Rivau- 
diere's  face,  his  sudden  preoccupation,  the  accent  in 
his  tastes  and  preferences,  illuminated  and  enriched  it 
until  the  girl  was  there,  with  all  her  restrictions  and 
impotentialities,  yet  with  the  innate  power  of  her 
accomplishment.  She  was  touched  with  reality  by  the 
results  of  her  relation  with  Rivaudiere.  The  portrait 
of  her  was  alive.  In  a  few  strokes  she  existed;  her 
strictly  dutiful  childhood,  her  adventure  of  the  war, 
her  eager  espousal  of  independence,  even  the  violin  so 
like  what  would  be  a  deep  shade  of  her  skin  and  rest 
ing — Olive  was  sure — against  a  square,  graceless 
shoulder  .  .  . 

She  rose  and  held  out  her  hand.  "It  has  been  charm 
ing  to  see  you.  You  have  indeed  been  most  kind." 

Madame  de  Rives's  smile  was  for  the  first  time  deep. 
Its  light  ran  over  the  fatigued  lines  of  her  face  and 

[263] 


ASCENT 

lingered  in  her  eyes,  as  if  she  had  her  own  measure 
ment  of  their  exchange.  She  remarked  that  it  had 
been  only  a  pleasure  to  make  a  smallest  sign  of  thanks 
to  one  who  had  given  her  brother — the  dear  boy,  of 
whom  she  was  so  fond — so  many  pleasures.  She  sup 
posed  that  Olive  was  very  surrounded,  very  gay,  like 
all  her  people  nowadays;  it  was  good  for  Rene  to  see 
his  world — she  felt  it  indeed  necessary  for  one  with  his 
absurd  intellectual  curiosities.  When  Olive  spoke  of 
the  dinner  at  the  British  Embassy  where  so  many 
of  the  guests  had  expressed  a  hope  of  seeing  her,  her 
comment  grew  absent  again.  Yes,  she  regretted  not 
to  go,  but  the  last  time  she  had  dined  there  she  had 
suffered  from  an  indigestion  of  unequalled  severity, 
and  heaven  knew,  with  the  present  ambassadress,  what 
cook  they  had.  To  Olive's  mention — in  a  murmur 
of  whose  constriction  she  was  conscious — of  the  final 
volume  of  her  poems,  she  returned  only  her  vague 
exclamation,  the  sound  of  which  was  as  impenetrable 
as  her  expression,  and  her  eyes  wandered  to  the  window 
again,  as  she  drifted  off  to  a  comment  on  the  heaviness 
of  the  winter  rains  in  the  country  and  the  consequent 
illness  of  their  old  steward.  At  the  door  of  the  second 
drawing  room,  where  a  footman  was  waiting,  she 
seemed  to  recollect  herself;  "and  we  are  sorry  not  to 
be  able  to  ask  you  to  dine.  But  our  house  is,  as  you 
see,  closed.  My  husband  is  in  Belgrade  and  my 
mother  never  leaves  Mallary  now." 

She  murmured  an  order  to  the  servant  and  made 
once  more  her  grave  inclination  of  the  head;  and  a 
second  later  Olive  found  herself  descending  the  wide 
sweep  of  the  stairs. 

The  perfect  security  of  her  hostess's  look  reflected 
[264] 


ASCENT 

itself,  with  a  sudden  accrescence  of  force  and  will,  in 
her  eyes.  As  she  passed  out  of  the  high  entrance  doors 
she  was  already  composing  the  message  which,  from  the 
nearest  telegraph  office,  she  would  send  to  Rivaudiere. 
Her  need  to  see  him — more,  to  face  clearly  the  issue 
with  him — had  suddenly  become  imperative.  Yet  as 
she  stared  for  a  moment  into  the  deep  dusk,  with  the 
cold  starry  lights  on  the  river  moving  through  the  first 
darkness,  the  wonder  flashed  through  her  mind  if  here, 
too,  she  were  not  being  manipulated;  if  the  interview 
which  had  just  terminated  had  not  been  planned  to 
bring  her  to  a  crisis,  and  if  this  would  not  prove  to  be 
the  final  point  of  Madame  de  Rives's  science. 


[265] 


XXI 

AS  she  sat,  in  the  thinning  January  light,  and 
looked  out  across  the  greenish  pond,  with  the 
grey  carp  as  motionless  as  silence  in  the  still 
water,  a  sharp  touch  of  the  same  uncertainty  arrested 
for  an  instant  the  progressive  drive  of  her  thoughts. 

Rivaudiere  had  telephoned  her,  late  the  night  before, 
and  immediately  on  receipt  of  her  telegram,  in  so 
definite  a  tone  that  she  was  conscious  that  nothing  had 
escaped  him,  even  in  the  compressed  words  of  her 
message.  It  was  evidently  enough  for  him  that  she 
had  summoned  him,  that  she  had  said  there  was 
something  she  must  discuss  with  him;  and  that  she 
had  put  it  with  such  implications  of  importance,  in 
spite  of  her  haste,  that  he  had  felt  himself  justified 
in  suggesting  that  they  go,  the  next  morning,  to  Fon- 
tainebleau  in  his  motor,  to  lunch  and  to  spend  the 
day. 

Their  drive  out  had  had  a  silence  which  their 
drives  usually  lacked.  Olive  was  beginning  to  probe 
some  of  the  beauty  of  spacing,  in  an  older  world,  and 
some  of  the  finer  relations  between  omission  and  elision. 
Whenever  he  made  an  evident  effort  of  detachment 
from  his  thoughts,  to  point  out  to  her  the  curve  of  a 
hillside  or  the  rise  of  a  spire,  she  could  see,  in  the 
quieter  quality  of  his  smile,  how  deeply  he  was  savour 
ing  the  significances  the  day  had  for  him.  He  had 
turned  to  her  only  once  with  a  spoken  comment. 

"What  a  still  winter  sky — and  how  beautiful  all 
France  is  under  it,  with  the  monotonous  green  gone 

[266] 


ASCENT 

and  only  the  bare  earth  and  the  bare  branches  left! 
Yes,  the  country's  lovely  enough  to  show  its  bones!" 

"Does  it  add  to  it  for  you,  to  see  it  with  me?" 
she  had  abruptly  asked. 

He  showed  her  for  an  instant  an  expression  so 
genuinely  astonished  that  his  usual  elaborate  courtesies 
were  submerged.  "But  the  presence  of  no  single  human 
being  could  add  to  France !  You  don't  yet  understand, 
do  you,  the  indifference  and  impersonality  of  time,  as  a 
country  creates  itself?"  His  smile  changed,  as  he 
looked  at  her.  "But  if  it's  not  wonderful  to  see  France 
with  you,  it's  wonderful  to  see  you  with  France!" 

After  their  luncheon  he  had  left  her  to  go  on  to  the 
park  alone,  while  he  delayed  at  the  entrance  to  give  an 
order  about  his  car.  His  single  question  to  her,  as 
they  stopped  at  the  gates,  had  been  the  query  whether 
she  were  willing  to  stay  and  dine,  and  drive  back  in  the 
evening.  She  had  let  her  quick  glance  answer  him,  and 
had  turned  abruptly  to  trace  with  her  eyes  the  sweeping 
curve  of  the  double  staircase,  with  its  creamy  tint 
warmed  by  the  faint  sun;  and  as  she  had  passed 
through  the  gates  into  the  park,  she  was  conscious  that 
her  sense  of  expectation  had  never  been  keener. 

From  the  first  moment  she  saw  it,  some  quality  in 
Fontainebleau  had  held  her.  She  told  herself,  with  her 
ironic  flash,  that  here  least  of  all,  in  so  personal  a 
setting  of  the  past,  could  she  be  unaware  of  ghosts.  It 
was  invariably  difficult  for  her  to  picture  any  antece 
dence  except  in  its  allusion  or  relation  to  qualities  like 
her  own.  But  something  in  the  still  rooms,  so  royal 
yet  so  intimate,  had  touched  her  rarely  touched 
imagination.  She  felt  them  peopled  by  the  residue  of 
feeling — that  creatures  wholly  human  in  the  magnifi- 

[267] 


ASCENT 

cence  of  their  pleasure  and  vitality  had  here  made 
their  brief  contribution  to  the  long  tapestry  of  human 
incidence  which  the  centuries  wove.  The  same  forces 
which  had  animated  these  lives  were,  as  it  seemed  to 
her,  in  the  complex  play  of  consequence  now  touching 
her  own.  Her  gradual  initiation  in  finer  values  and 
in  the  implicative  sense  had  prepared  her  to  compre 
hend  them;  and  to  comprehend  them  was  to  measure, 
for  the  first  time,  the  meaning  of  Rivaudiere's  presence, 
as  he  drew  near  her,  along  the  walk.  He  passed 
between  the  silvery  tree  trunks,  with  the  long  line  of 
the  palace  behind  him  and  his  shadow  falling  in 
front  of  him  on  the  gold-coloured  trodden  earth,  and 
the  sound  of  his  steps  disengaged  itself  against  the 
soft  drip  of  the  water,  as  it  ran  into  the  pond.  She 
saw  that  he  did  not  hurry.  His  evident  enjoyment  of 
a  gradual  approach  to  their  situation,  coupled  with  his 
quickly  stimulated  warmth,  seemed  to  her  extraor 
dinarily  indicative  of  his  quality,  his  fearless  transi 
tions  and  his  delicate  balance  of  values.  She  caught  in 
her  mind  a  flare  of  wonder  as  to  whether  she  herself 
could  not  master  such  methods  of  manipulation,  and 
acquire  their  secret  as  she  had  acquired  Rivaudiere's 
idioms. 

As  he  took  his  seat  beside  her,  on  the  stone  bench, 
the  significance  beneath  the  ready  ardour  of  his 
expression  was  so  visible  that  the  words  she  had  meant 
to  greet  him  with  were  arrested.  She  felt  her  colour 
rise,  with  the  pause.  She  was  conscious  that  her  eyes 
fell,  that  her  hands  made  a  quick,  nervous  gesture, 
and  she  shrank  with  a  sudden  uncertainty  to  her  corner 
of  the  seat. 

The  motion,  so  unaccustomed  in  her,  clearly  deep- 
[268] 


ASCENT 

ened  the  light  in  Rivaudiere's  eyes.    He  laid  his  hand 
on  her  gloved  arm,  and  bent  nearer  to  her. 

"So  you're  at  last  going  to  let  me  say  to  you  what 
I've  known  I  must  say — ah,  ever  since  our  first  hour 
together,  in  September?" 

Her  lips  moved  uncertainly.  "You  said,  then — do 
you  remember? — that  I  seemed  to  you  a  miracle." 

"And  then,  when  I  only  divined  all  that  you  really 
were — !"  His  clasp  tightened.  "It's  going  to  make 
you  wonderfully  happy,  you  know  .  .  .  !  Ah,  you're 
too  exquisite  a  creature  not  to  be  approached  with  all 
delicacy!  I've  wondered  enough  what  I  dared  to  say 
to  you,  I  assure  you;  your  people  have  all  of  the 
audacities,  but  what  they  see  is  the  audacity,  not  the 
feeling  behind  it.  And  you  know  my  immeasurable 
regard  for  Devon;  but  he's  not  French — he  seems 
completely  to  let  you  take  care  of  yourself!  And  you 
yourself,  by  your  own  sign,  are  willing  to  listen  to 
me  .  .  ."  His  eyes  searched  hers,  with  as  clear  a 
charm  in  their  play  of  feeling  as  the  care  with  which 
he  had  chosen  his  words. 

Olive  waited  for  a  second.  The  tonic  beauty  of  the 
day,  of  the  clear  pale  sunlight,  the  packed  significances 
of  the  spot  and  Rivaudiere's  tone  stirred  slowly 
through  her.  She  had  never  yet  been  more  conscious 
of  her  imperative  personal  insistence,  and  her  self- 
imposition  had  never  seemed  more  alive  with  directive 
power. 

"You  have  been  extraordinary;  but  what  has  been 
most  extraordinary  to  me  has  been  my  own  slowness — 
she  broke  off,  and  the  gesture  with  which  she  raised  her 
clasped  hands  to  her  breast  had  still  the  imprecision  of 
uncertainty.    "You  see,  I  seem  to  have  thought  so  little 

[269] 


ASCENT 

about  it  all  ...  I  have  been  so  ignorant  of  what 
gives  living  reality;  and  through  you — yes,  you — and 
through  our  wonderful  days  in  all  this  wonderful 
beauty,  I  have  learnt.  No — it  will  be  like  seeing 
another  marvellous  thing  with  you!  You  have  given 
me  so  much;  and  I  am  ready,"  her  head  rose — "for  you 
to  give  me  more." 

He  again  bent  nearer  her,  with  his  look  warming  to 
a  sudden  incandescence.  "Ah,  but  you  too  have  known 
—you  have  seen  and  felt — all  the  different  qualities  in 
my  feeling  for  you!  For  your  beauty  and  your 
brilliancy  and  the  rarity  of  your  mind;  but  above  all 
for  your  unawakened,  untouched  capacity,  which  is 
the  finest  form  of  your  loveliness.  Ever  since  I  saw 
you  under  the  tree,  with  your  chin  tilted  up  and  your 
eyes  so  full  of  the  sky — what  haven't  I  thought  of 
you!" 

She  gave  him  his  look  back  fully,  with  her  last 
reserves  gone  before  the  insistence  of  his  words. 
"And  I  of  you." 

"That's  what  I'd  hoped  beyond  everything — that  you 
would  give  me  the  same  devotion  which  I  have  so 
deeply  given  you  .  .  .  !  Ah,  there's  no  feeling  in  the 
world,  is  there,  which  isn't  a  real  gift,  a  real  surrender 
of  one's  self  .  .  ." 

As  he  broke  his  exclamation  and  she  felt  the  warmth 
of  his  hand  on  her  bare  hand,  from  which  she  had 
slipped  her  glove,  Olive  drew  a  sharp  breath.  She 
was  at  last  face  to  face  with  the  word  from  him  of 
which,  in  the  last  two  months,  she  had  been  in  con 
stant  expectation;  and  her  expectation,  she  knew, 
stretched  as  far  back  as  her  arid  girlhood,  with  its 
pitiless  exactions  of  energy  and  its  lack  of  any  touch 

[270] 


ASCENT 

of  poetry.  This,  at  last,  was  her  fulfilment  of  participa 
tion.  Then  something  in  his  last  phrase  abruptly 
caught  her.  Her  look  of  expectancy  widened  and  her 
hands  fell  to  her  lap. 

"Surely  you  have  seen,  you  have  anticipated!"  he 
was  continuing,  with  his  voice  deepening  from  phrase 
to  phrase.  "You've  seen  what  it's  going  to  do  for 
you  to  be  enriched  by  enriching  even  a  poor  beggar 
like  me,  who  is  so  little  fit  to  touch  your  charming 
feet!  One  of  your  beauties  is  your  lovely,  cool 
immunity.  But  just  because  it's  been  so  maintained, 
so  separate  and  so  sure,  the  happiness  of  sacrificing 
it  is  going  to  be  all  the  more  brilliant  to  you  ..." 
He  searched  her  eyes.  The  surprise  in  her  face  was 
now  so  evident  that  it  arrested  him.  "But  isn't  it?" 
he  finally  ended. 

She  shook  her  head.    "I  don't  know." 
"You  don't  know?    But  that  is  delightful  of  you!" 
She  made  again  a  negative  sign;   her  lips  parted 
and  she  stared  for  a  second  in  front  of  her. 

"It  isn't,"  said  Rivaudiere,  "that  you  fear  in  me  any 
lack  of  consideration  for  you — surely  I  don't  deserve 
that!"  Her  gesture  cut  him  short.  "No — I  thought 
not  I  What  is  it,  then?" 

She  made  a  faint  movement  with  her  hands.  Her 
eyes  were  persistently  set  on  the  last  and  thinnest  bare 
twigs,  which  interwove  the  trees  and  stretched  to  the 
greyish  sky.  The  deserted  park,  the  stillness  of  the 
winter  air,  and  all  the  scene  about  them,  had  moved 
her  sense  of  drama;.  Rivaudiere's  words  moved  it  still 
more;  yet  she  was  clearly  conscious  that  all  of  these 
outward  signs  of  what  people  called  emotion  paled 
beside  the  opposition  which  his  words  startled  in  her. 

[271] 


ASCENT 

She  didn't  yet  know  whether  it  were  an  extreme  of 
ignorance  or  of  incapacity;  whether  she  had  lived  with 
these  facts  dormant  in  herself,  or  whether  she  had 
touched  them  all  along  the  line  of  her  experience  and 
was  incapable  of  ever  learning  them.  But  she  turned, 
at  the  end  of  her  silence,  a  look  to  him  whose  confusion 
came  from  her  crowded  thoughts. 

"You  really  mean  it — that  you  expect  me  to  feel 
that  way?  That  you  expect  me — "  she  touched  her 
breast  as  if  she  tried  to  emphasise  her  incredulity, 
"to  sacrifice  what  is  my  inner  self  to  you?" 

"Does  it  seem  so  strange?"  Rivaudiere's  smile  was 
all  reassurance. 

She  rose  suddenly,  with  her  hands  still  clasped,  and 
looked  down  at  him.  "But  it  never  occurred  to  me  you 
would  expect  that  of  me!" 

From  the  bench  where  he  was  evidently  held  motion 
less  by  the  discrepancy  between  her  tone  and  his 
warmth,  Rivaudiere's  eyes  looked  up  at  her  with  a 
frankness  which  was  all  sophistication.  "I've  hoped 
— I  can't  say  expected — that  you'd  really  care  for  me!" 

"Oh,  I'm  not  afraid  of  caring  for  you  .  .  ."  She 
brushed  his  doubt  aside.  "I  only  ask  to  live  it;  but 
as  to  sharing  with  you  my  thought,  my  independence, 
my  separateness  .  .  ." 

"But  what  else  is  caring?  You've  an  amazing 
beauty;  but  surely  you  never  thought  me  so  dull  a  brute 
that  I  could  be  sensible  only  to  that;  surely  that's 
what  makes  feeling — that  it  extends  beyond  itself,  that 
it's  all  life!"  He  paused,  as  the  concentration  of  her 
look  and  her  immobility  forced  itself  on  him.  "But 
have  you  never  yet  understood  what  a  personal  rela 
tion  means?  That  it's  far  beyond  the  outer  things, 

[272] 


ASCENT 

the  however  loved  possession,  the  bodily  and  definable 
thing?  that  it's  a  real  concession,  a  real  gift?" 

She  shook  her  head.    "Never." 

"Not  in  your  girlhood?  Oh,  I  don't  ask  about 
Devon,  for  that  would  be  indelicate — but  never?  Not 
in  your  childhood?  One  has  those  relations  in  the 
strangest  way — in  friendship  as  well  as  in  love,  with 
one's  people,  with  children,  with  old  servants." 

"Never,"  she  repeated;  her  hands  were  still  clasped 
and  the  fixity  of  her  look  unbroken. 

He  continued  to  search  her  face  for  a  moment,  and 
then  a  note  of  impatience  broke  in  on  the  ardour  of 
his  voice.  "But  isn't  that  all  the  more  reason  for  you 
to  want  it — a  real  relation?  Isn't  that  what  you'd 
expected,  in  letting  me  care  for  you  and  in  giving 
me  to  understand  you  cared  for  me?" 

Olive's  thought  seemed  to  sweep  rapidly  ahead. 
"I  don't  know — I  don't  understand  it.  I  don't  see 
why  it  should  be.  The  outer  thing —  "  her  shoulders 
rose —  "is  simple  enough;  but  the  moment  you  ask 
me  to  yield  to  you  my  independence  of  feeling,  to 
modify,  to  change —  Her  brows  drew  together  in  a 
heavy  line. 

They  exchanged  for  a  moment  a  long  glance.  The 
fragrance  of  her  beauty  in  the  still  cold  air,  the  warm 
softness  of  her  hair  against  her  forehead  and  the  rest 
lessness  of  her  hands  still  lent  Rivaudiere's  look  a  glow. 
But  his  critical  faculty  was  so  evidently  stirred  that 
it  was  almost  traceable  in  the  mobility  of  his  face. 

He  waited  again.  "If  you  repulsed  me — that  I 
could  understand;  if  I  offended  you,  or  if  you  had  a 
principle  in  the  matter,  I  could  respect  it.  But  to 
ask  of  life  all  its  contribution  of  charm,  to  want  to 

[273] 


ASCENT 

be  stimulated  and  yet  to  refuse  to  feel — and  not 
because  you  fear  feeling,  but  because  you  fear 
giving  ...  !"  His  incredulity  once  more  arrested 
him.  "There  is  no  consequence  about  you.  Your 
magnificence — it  all  fades  into  airl" 

Her  eyes  caught  his,  with  a  new  hardness  in  their 
depths,  as  if  the  sudden  sense  of  antagonism  between 
them  were  patent  and  visible. 

"And  yet  you  say  you  have  cared  for  me;  is  it 
so  impossible  for  you  to  care  for  me  as  I  am?  I've 
told  you  I  was  willing.  .  .  ."  Her  sarcasm  pierced 
her  voice,  as  his  silence  continued.  "It  looks  very 
much  as  if  I  hadn't  been  a  miracle  to  you,  after  all!" 

Rivaudiere's  flush  had  risen  under  the  touch  of  her 
tone.  He  hesitated  a  moment  moxe,  and  then  flung 
out  his  hands. 

"But  one  doesn't  order  and  extort  those  things — they 
bloom!  Ah,  the  day  I  first  saw  you  it  seemed  simple 
enough.  I  thought  of  you  perpetually,  you  followed 
me,  you  disturbed  me,  you  gave  that  sting  to  my 
imagination  which  comes  only  when  two  people  are  to 
have  a  mutual  experience.  Of  course  I'd  never  seen 
anyone  like  you;  who  has?  I,  on  my  side,  have  been 
ready  to  give  you  everything  and  anything;  but  that 
you  should  for  a  moment  consider  my  feeling  for  you 
so  slight,  so  poor  a  thing,  that  it  could  be  merely  what 
we  call — in  our  stupid  definitions — physical,  experi 
mental,  tentative  ...  no,  all  women  are  not  like  you! " 
he  declared. 

Her  quick  glance  shot  at  him.  Her  sense  of  his 
retention  of  the  private  facts  in  his  life,  which  his 
homage  to  her  had  never  been  able  to  complicate  or 
disturb,  had  never  been  more  alive.  For  a  moment 

[274] 


ASCENT 

she  had  a  dim  apprehension  of  this  dual  existence  of 
emotion  and  affection  in  an  old  people,  of  its  warm 
efflorescence,  its  rigid  demarcations,  its  scrupulous 
alignment  of  passions  to  their  own  realm  and  of  its 
deeper  dedications.  The  action  of  such  forces,  so 
simple  yet  so  rich,  carried  her  thoughts  far,  like  one 
of  the  long  straight  vistas  of  the  winter  forest;  and 
there  hung  before  her  for  an  instant,  in  the  still  air, 
the  little  apartment  in  the  rue  de  Seze,  not  a  detail  of 
her  slight  information  of  which  had  escaped  her — the 
Stravinsky  in  the  evenings,  the  gaiety  of  an  uncon- 
formed  existence,  the  spring  in  Spain,  the  rigid  provin 
cial  past  and  the  sudden  emancipation  which  would 
produce  such  a  girl 

Her  frown  again  drew  her  brows  sharply  together. 
"I  am  not  denying  the  truth  of  what  you  say  .  .  ." 
She  broke  off;  then  with  a  wavering  motion,  full  of 
beauty,  she  took  a  step  towards  him  and  her  hands 
spread  and  opened.  "Perhaps  you  will  teach  me;  per 
haps  you  will  help  me  to  learn,  to  understand.  .  .  ." 

"Perhaps!"  Rivaudiere  had  answered  instantly. 
His  tone  had  a  perfect  accent  of  vivacity.  But  the 
equal  perfection  of  the  blankness  underneath  it  fell  like 
a  lash  across  her  sensitiveness.  She  heard  the  long 
reverberation  of  the  door  he  had  closed,  and  closed  so 
rapidly  and  finally  that  he  had  hidden  from  her, — not 
for  her  protection  but  for  the  protection  of  his  own 
regret — even  his  astonishment  and  his  pity.  With  a 
word,  she  felt  as  if  she  had  passed  for  him  into  history 
and  was  no  more  than  a  pallid  portrait  on  the  walls 
of  the  palace. 

He  rose  and  stood  beside  her.  His  face  was  as 
blank,  under  its  vivid  courtesy,  as  his  voice. 

[275] 


ASCENT 

"And  now  the  light  is  changing  .  .  .  you  see?  We 
ought  not  to  start  too  late;  and  you  wanted  once  more 
to  look  at  that  splendid  chimney  piece,  with  the  F's 
set  over  it.  .  .  ." 

There  was  some  delay  in  getting  their  motor;  and 
as  she  waited  while  Rivaudiere  went  in  search  of  it, 
Olive  wandered  down  the  street  and  found  herself  in 
front  of  the  church,  which  he  had  named  to  his 
chauffeur  as  a  meeting  place. 

In  response  to  an  impulse  she  did  not  stop  to  ques 
tion,  she  mounted  the  steps  and  lifted  the  leather 
curtain.  In  the  chilly  dusk  the  interior  was  colder 
than  the  winter  air.  The  flames  of  the  candles  before 
the  shrines  burned  with  a  fixed  pallor  and  had  none 
of  the  warmth  of  light.  The  silence  was  absolute.  She 
pulled  forward  one  of  the  rush-covered  stools  and 
sank  on  her  knees,  with  her  eyes  set  on  the  Sacred 
Heart;  and  her  mechanical  drop  into  concentration  was 
suddenly  infused  with  life,  and  she  felt  a  recollection 
touch  her  like  a  hand. 

What  drew  her  thoughts  back,  she  realised,  was 
not  the  Litany  of  the  Saints,  which  mechanically 
occurred  to  her  and  which  she  had  never  yet  suffi 
ciently  learnt,  but  the  dead  scent  of  spent  incense,  of 
melted  wax,  and  of  the  human  beings  who  ordinarily 
thronged  the  seats.  She  tried  again  to  expand  her 
thoughts  in  prayer,  but  the  formula  only  contracted 
them.  She  caught  herself  wondering  why  the  paper 
flowers  about  the  Virgin's  altar  must  always  be  so 
hideously  arranged.  As  her  wandering  memories  rose 
and  fell  she  remembered  the  statue  of  the  Virgin  in 
Father  Ames's  room,  and  that  his  taste  had  never  been 

[276] 


ASCENT 

finer  than  in  its  arrangement;  and  there  again  broke 
across  her  mind  a  flash-like  impression  of  his  face. 

Her  instinctive  motion  was  always  to  avoid  it. 
Whenever  she  had  knelt  for  a  moment,  in  the  churches 
she  and  Rivaudiere  visited,  it  had  always  been  with  a 
definite  denial  of  any  survival  of  his  influence.  But 
under  the  pressure  and  turmoil  of  her  sensations,  the 
remembrance  became  every  second  more  insistent;  and 
she  had  the  pervasive  sense  that,  in  some  inexplicable 
way,  he  with  his  profundities  and  Rivaudiere  with  his 
dilettantism  were  linked  in  a  like  reality. 


[277] 


IV 


XXII 

"It   yTRS.   DEVON!"   Isabel   Bourdas  exclaimed, 
V/l    "of  course — I  perfectly  remember  her!" 

Her  eyes  followed  the  long  line  of  the 
terrace  where  she  stood,  down  its  length  and  across  the 
scattered  groups  between  the  warm  brick  front  of  the 
house  and  the  overflowing  stone  urns  of  pink  geraniums 
on  the  balustrade.  Against  the  spring  sky  the  first 
green  of  the  trees  on  the  lawns  below  detached  itself; 
and  sifting  through  their  branches  came  the  unmis 
takable  murmur,  so  special  and  personal,  of  the  London 
streets. 

Her  companion,  whose  glance  was  also  on  the  shifting 
interchange  of  figures  on  the  terrace,  smiled  for  a 
second  before  he  answered  her,  as  if  her  tone  gave 
him  his  own  reserves  of  thought.  As  they  stood 
together  he  was  taller  than  she,  built  on  the  same  long 
lines  of  thinness,  with  his  hair  and  his  moustache 
already  white,  against  his  brownish  skin.  The  ease 
of  his  attitude,  beside  her,  testified  to  a  familiarity 
of  companionship  which  his  look,  when  it  turned  to 
her,  only  accentuated. 

"You  really  are  inimitable,  you  know — your  easy 
observances,  your  easy  lacks  of  observance — and  yet 
your  constant  kindness!  You  can't  help  being  kind, 
even  when  you  forget  people!" 

She  brushed  aside  his  tone  with  a  touch  of  impa 
tience.  "Is  it  at  this  late  day,  my  dear  Francis,  that 

[281] 


ASCENT 

I  must  remind  you  that  I'm  just  nothing  at  all  but 
a  type?  I've  no  character — and  I'm  too  sensible  to 
want  to  imitate  character  by  being  eccentric,  which 
is  the  only  outlet  left  to  women  in  my  unfortunate 
position.  .  .  ."  She  laughed.  "But  I  do  very  clearly 
recollect  Mrs.  Devon." 

Sir  Francis  Passmore's  glance  again  passed  along 
the  terrace.  "She's  scarcely  a  person  one  forgets." 

"She's  certainly  a  person  you  wouldn't  forget!" 
Her  amusement  seemed  to  apologise  for  her  tone. 
"And  where  did  you  run  into  her?" 

"With  Minnie  Harringford  who,  I  see,  has  brought 
her  to  you  to-day.  It  was  last  night,  at  dinner.  At 
first,  I  said  to  myself,  'another  of  these  rich  clever 
creatures,'  as  one  always  does  say  about  Americans; 
but  afterwards,  when  I'd  had  a  nearer  look  at  her, 
I  changed  my  mind."  He  paused.  "She  looks  extraor 
dinary;  but  probably  she  isn't." 

Lady  Isabel  seemed  to  make,  in  her  mind,  a  choice 
which  determined  the  note  of  her  answer.  "Well, 
to  you  she  might  be."  .  .  .  She  waited  to  follow  the 
direction  of  his  look.  "It's  amusing,  isn't  it,  that 
Minnie — dear  soul — should  venture  to  like  anyone 
so  evidently  definite!" 

"It's  even  more  amusing,"  Passmore  rejoined,  "that 
Mrs.  Devon,  on  her  side,  should  have  the  sense  not 
to  like  dear  Minnie.  My  first  impression  of  her — for 
of  course  her  beauty's  striking — was  that  she  was,  as 
I  tell  you,  like  all  the  rest;  aping  a  life  to  which 
she  didn't  belong,  all  an  affectation  of  individualism, 
but  in  reality  fluid — boneless.  I  thought  she'd  accept 
anything — and  above  all  your  sister-in-law  and  Brough 
House;  but  she  doesn't.  She's  impressed — but  she's 

[282] 


ASCENT 

not  interested.  She's  apart—"  he  hesitated;  "and  yet 
she's  not  indifferent." 

Lady  Isabel's  quick  grey  glance  met  him.  At  first 
her  look  was  rapid  and  had  the  furtive  touch  of  a  per 
sistent  detachment  of  attitude;  but  as  it  lingered  it 
deepened. 

"It  is  so  extraordinary — the  way  all  your  judg 
ments  of  a  woman  come  back  to  the  qualities  of  per 
sonal  insistence!  We're  all  alike  to  you.  We  all  seem 
to  you  out  for  the  same  thing.  You  see  us,  invariably, 
as  invariable — the  Mrs.  Devons,  the  Minnies,  even 
I  .  .  .  !  You're  too  much  affected  by  women  to  have 
any  sensitiveness  in  your  view  of  them —  Her  laugh 
interrupted  her.  "Sometimes,  you  see,  I'm  almost 
tempted  to  say  to  you  what  I  mean!" 

Passmore  nodded,  with  a  touch  of  brevity.  It  was 
evident  that  he  was  constantly  relating  his  companion 
to  the  scene  about  them,  the  murmur  of  talk,  the 
light  dresses  moving  amongst  the  trees,  the  groups 
of  men  smoking  on  the  terrace  and  the  low  deep 
rooms  to  which  the  windows  behind  them  gave  view. 
Her  quick  voice  and  the  ease  of  the  movement  of  her 
thought  linked  themselves,  it  was  apparent,  with  all 
that  had  produced  her.  Yet  as  he  confronted  her  his 
expression  witnessed  that  she  affected  his  imagination 
as  definitely  and  as  personally  as  she  affected  him 
by  her  angular  distinction.  Even  in  his  days  of  a 
comparative  inexperience — the  remembrance  evidently 
passed  through  his  mind — he  had  felt  the  force  of  her 
attitude  of  detachment  quite  as  much  as  he  had  felt 
the  importance  of  the  traditions  which  produced  it. 

"I  can't  say  you've  ever  been  tolerant  to  my  faults," 
his  voice  had  a  touch  of  dryness.  "But  then  you  can't 

[283] 


ASCENT 

say  I've  ever  expected  you  to  be!  At  least  I've  that 
consolation — that  you're  a  little  more  pointedly  hard 
on  me  than  you  are  on  anyone  else."  He  waited  an 
instant.  "We're  hard  on  each  other.  There  is  that 
touch  of — what  would  one  call  it,  asperity? — between 
us  which  is  evident  in  people  between  whom  too  much 
and  too  little  has  happened." 

Lady  Isabel  had  taken  up  her  sunshade  from  the 
bench  beside  her  and  the  gesture  seemed  to  put  an 
end  to  their  exchange. 

"No,  not  even  in  any  citation  of  the  past  can  you 
appeal  to  me!"  she  said  easily.  "You're  marvellous, 
Francis,  but  I've  finished  with  you!  I'm  glad  we  had 
our  few  minutes  together;  it's  the  first  time  we've 
exchanged  a  word  in  ages,  isn't  it?  And  of  course 
you  know  that  in  reality  I've  never  finished  with  you! 
There's  Mamma,  lying  in  wait  for  you;  do  you  see? 
Your  wife's  too  magnificent.  Good  heavens,  what  lace ! " 
She  had  advanced  a  step  beyond  him,  and  she  turned. 
"As  for  Mrs.  Devon,  look  out!  Oh,  mt  for  her,  but 
for  her  egoism.  It's  worse  than  yours!" 

Passmore's  eyes  followed  her  gesture.  "She  looks, 
in  that  deep  violet  colour,  as  if  she  were  the  complete 
actress,  doesn't  she?  Oh,  not  as  all  women  look 
actresses  to-day,  but  as  if  all  her  roles  were  real!" 

Lady  Isabel's  head  tilted  critically.  "No — your  real 
actress  immolates  herself,  she  dedicates  herself  to  her 
interpretation;  Mrs.  Devon's  only  interest  is  to  glance 
over  her  shoulder  and  see  how  much  she's  impressing 
her  audience.  .  .  .  Come;  there  are  too  many  people 
you  must  speak  to!" 

She  had  threaded  her  way,  amongst  the  scattered 
people,  as  she  spoke,  with  a  word  here  and  there, 

[284] 


ASCENT 

and  a  whisper,  as  she  passed  him,  to  her  younger 
brother — who,  with  his  greyish  hair  and  beard  ruffled, 
was  fixing  his  large  shell  spectacles  on  the  Swedish 
biologist  with  whom  he  was  in  deep  discussion — that 
he  must  remember  his  manners  and  talk  to  Lady 
Passmore,  and  had  approached  the  lower  end  of  the 
terrace.  As  she  paused,  close  to  Olive,  her  instinc 
tive  retraction  of  cordiality  was  arrested.  Young 
Lady  Harringford,  who  had  brought  her  to  lunch,  had 
just  left,  and  Olive  was  alone.  She  had  been  looking 
down  to  the  lawn,  across  the  balustrade  of  the  terrace, 
and  in  the  face  she  turned  and  raised,  at  Isabel's  ad 
vance,  there  seemed  to  linger  for  an  instant  the  residue 
of  her  thoughts.  Her  beauty  appeared  to  Isabel  as 
intact  and  unchangeable  as  she  had  remembered  it. 
Her  penetration  had  then  divined  that  under  the 
younger  woman's  dominant  certitude  there  was  the  rest 
less  movement  of  a  force  without  direction.  Yet  her 
eyes  were  now  definitely  brushed  by  the  nascent  realisa 
tion  of  an  insecurity.  Some  inner  pressure  had  added 
a  touch  of  strain  to  the  angles  of  her  lips  and  darkened 
her  glance,  as  if  the  steady  consistency  of  her  limita 
tions  had  begun  to  reach  her  consciousness;  and  Isabel 
felt  her  curiosity  rise  into  play,  before  the  suggestion. 

Olive  rose  at  once,  with  her  look  softening  under 
her  smile  of  recognition. 

"You  don't  perhaps  quite  remember  me — ?  I  went 
to  see  you  during  your  few  hours  in  New  York — ' 
Her  tone,  Isabel  had  to  admit,  was  far  from  any 
insistence.  From  the  good  taste  of  her  ease  to  the  fall 
of  her  long  dress,  the  drop  of  the  feathers  against 
her  hair,  her  lack  of  jewels,  her  lack  of  display  of 
any  sort,  she  had  mastered  imitation,  to  the  closest 

[285] 


ASCENT 

point;  yet  wouldn't  Ames  have  said — Isabel  asked  her 
self  the  sudden  question — that  it  was  imitation  and 
not  subtlety? 

She  warmed  her  voice,  as  she  responded.  "I  not 
only  remember  you,  but  I  was  so  sorry  when  I  realised, 
before  luncheon,  that  you  were  you,  that  my  sister-in- 
law  had  had  the  pleasure  of  bringing  you  to  us,  and  not 
I.  My  mother  is  delighted  that  you  came.  We  seldom 
see  anything  so  lovely,  you  know! — Yes,  of  course,  I've 
the  keenest  memory  of  our  talk  in  New  York."  She 
had  dropped  into  the  seat  beside  Olive.  "You  came 
to  see  me  at  the  very  kind  suggestion  of  our  mutual 
friend,  Father  Ames." 

Olive's  eyes  met  hers  for  an  instant  and  then  turned 
to  an  urn  of  the  salmon-coloured  flowers  beside  them. 
She  took  up  a  long  trail  of  geranium  vine  and  drew  it 
through  her  fingers  before  she  spoke. 

"Yes.    It  was  just  at  the  tine  of  my  conversion." 

"I  remember  that  in  a  note  to  me,  soon  afterwards, 
he  said  you  had  entered  the  Church.  And  now,  I  -sup 
pose  you  have  arrived,"  Isabel's  look  was  not  unkind, 
"to  conquer  London!" 

Olive  smiled  and  her  eyes  again  shifted  to  the  lawns 
below.  "Yes,  or  to  be  conquered  by  it.  My  husband, 
my  little  daughter  and  I  were  in  Paris  all  winter- 
where  it's  strange  enough  to  me,  but  not  strange  like 
this.  Here  I'm  scarcely  able  to  get  my  breath. 
Oh,  it  doesn't  make  one  thrilled;  it's  crushing,  enor 
mous!" 

"But  anyone  so  charming  as  you  finds  it  easy  enough 
to  reduce! "  said  Isabel  lightly.  "I'm  sure  you're  doing 
it.  Minnie  says  you  dine  out  every  night!" 

Olive's  look  slowly  turned  to  her.  In  their  direct 
[286] 


ASCENT 

exchange  of  regard  it  deepened  to  an  irony  and  a  mis 
trust,  Isabel  was  surprised  to  see,  of  herself. 

"I  think  you  will  understand  why  I  am  at  such  a 
particular  disadvantage  here;  I  am,  and  you  see  it. 
It's  not  that  I'm  a  stranger,  a  passer-by,  a  restless 
inconsequent  being.  Many  of  us  are  that,  and  yet  we 
manage  to  attach  ourselves.  No — I'm  just  wise  enough 
to  see  the  uselessness  of  us  all.  I  like  us  better  when 
we  stay  at  home,  unsophisticated  and  raw.  Even  when 
we're  transplanted,  we're  accidental;  oh,  I  don't  mean 
only  Americans!  One  can't  dispose  of  us  in  any  one 
nation.  I  mean  all  of  us  who  are  eternally  unrooted 
and  displaced." 

"Yes — London's  not  the  city  for  the  displaced; 
you're  right.  It  has  its  cruelties,  hasn't  it?  And 
even  to  people  who  so  belong  to  it.  .  .  ." 

Isabel's  smile  was  reminiscent.  She  was  comparing 
the  Olive  who  had  sat,  so  stiff  in  spite  of  her  apparent 
ease,  and  talked  with  her  in  the  stiffest  tone,  in  the 
New  York  hotel,  with  these  richer  ways  and  this 
rounder  and  surer  personality.  She  showed  the  ripe 
ness  of  more  varied  contacts  and  a  less  tart  aggression; 
but  fundamentally  was  she  touched,  Isabel  wondered? 

As  her  thoughts  drifted  she  could  see  that  Olive's 
attention  had  passed  for  a  second  beyond  her,  to 
the  group  nearest  them  on  the  terrace.  A  sudden 
change  touched  her  expression,  and  Isabel  was  con 
scious  of  an  equally  sudden  warmth  in  her  beauty 
and  a  radiation  in  her  vivacity,  as  if  she  instinctively 
responded  to  the  sense  of  having  created  an  admira 
tion,  even  at  this  distance.  She  turned  back  to  Isabel 
in  a  different  tone. 

"We  have  a  little  house  in  Hill  street,  which  my 
[287] 


ASCENT 

mother-in-law  found  for  us.  I  hope  you  will  come  to 
see  us  there.  My  husband's  international  competition 
for  the  plans  for  the  inter-allied  building  in  Paris  is 
just  on,  you  know;  but  when  he  is  really  settled  here, 
in  a  week  or  so,  I  shall  be  so  happy  if  you  will  lunch 
or  dine.  .  .  ." 

Isabel  rose.  She  vaguely  wondered  if  her  first 
impression  of  the  younger  woman  had  not  been  too 
delicate.  It  was  difficult  to  couple  so  perfect  a  plas 
ticity  with  a  progress  of  sensitiveness  or  with  the 
difficult  stages  of  any  education.  She  glanced  over  her 
shoulder. 

"I  must  let  Sir  Francis  Passmore  speak  to  you;  he's 
waiting  to  do  so,  I  see.  You've  not  met,  I  think? 
That's  his  wife,  with  the  huge  jeweled  bag.  He's 
recently  married — the  great  Mrs.  Montagu,  you  know. 
She's  astonishingly  handsome,  isn't  she?  She  always 
sits  straight  and  motionless,  like  that;  as  if  she  were 
afraid  of  cracking  her  surface,  my  brother  Terence 
says!  Her  only  sign  of  life  seems  to  be  that  every  now 
and  then  that  little  Pom  on  her  lap  barks  and  snarls. 
You  see  it's  as  absurd  a  world  here  as  anywhere  else! 
And  have  you  heard  any  of  the  Irish  debate,  in  the 
House?  Father  says  that  last  night  it  was  so  amusing." 

Olive  looked  at  her  keenly.  Her  curiosity  had 
sharply  penetrated  beneath  Isabel's  broad  smile.  In 
spite  of  her  easy  suppositions  and  habits  of  a  single 
angle  of  judgment,  something  in  Isabel  had  caught  and 
held  her.  It  was  like  the  flash  of  a  beauty  in  her 
marked  plainness — not  easily  decipherable,  she  felt, 
and  far  from  obvious.  But  even  to  her  usual  unalert 
prescience  it  was  evident  that  Isabel  had  somewhere 
had  an  encounter,  an  adventure,  an  agitation,  which 

[288] 


ASCENT 

accentuated  and  deepened  her.  At  the  thought  a  stir 
moved  through  her  mind. 

"I  should  like  to  ask — "  her  voice  was  high  and  clear, 
"do  you  ever  have  news  of  Father  Ames?" 

Isabel's  look  changed  at  once  to  a  visible  sympathy. 
"Ah,  no — little  enough.  He's  been  at  the  house  at 
Malaga,  you  know,  ever  since  he  took  his  vows;  so  his 
brother  the  Archbishop  said,  only  the  other  day,  to 
Mamma.  No,  of  course  his  silence  and  ours  must  be 
absolute.  There  was  some  talk,  a  month  or  two  ago, 
of  his  being  given  permission  to  come  to  England  and 
see  his  family  because  of  the  grave  illness  of  his  sister. 
But  one  never  knows — one  never  hears.  She's  Sister 
Martha  of  the  Cross,  you  know, — with  the  Dominicans. 
She  can't  live  more  than  a  few  weeks,  at  most;  such 
a  gay  wild  creature  as  she  was,  Ernestine  Ames  .  .  ." 
she  turned,  at  a  step  behind  them.  "I  must  go  to  see 
how  Papa  is  faring  with  our  Serene  Highness,  whom 
we've  a  little  on  our  hands;  she's  rather  a  dear,  isn't 
she?  And  here  you  are,  Francis!" 

Passmore  had  taken  the  seat  Isabel  left,  with  no 
response  to  her  comment  beyond  his  smile.  As  Olive's 
eyes  turned  back  to  him  his  silence,  beneath  the 
deliberation  of  his  manner,  seemed  to  her  as  much 
of  his  particular  quality  as  the  rapidity  and  concentra 
tion  of  his  glance,  as  she  had  caught  it  to-day  and, 
on  the  preceding  evening,  had  felt  its  directness  down 
the  length  of  a  long  dinner  table.  He  had  the  easy 
infractions  of  rule  of  his  type.  His  look,  as  she  met 
it,  was  at  this  closer  range  so  denned  in  its  simplicity 
that  she  had  never  imagined  so  perfect  an  adherence 
to  the  nudity  of  plain  dealing,  and  she  detached  her 

[289] 


ASCENT 

thoughts,  with  an  effort,  from  the  memory  which  had 
touched  them. 

"I've  unfortunately  only  a  moment,"  he  began,— 
"I've  a  committee  at  half  past  three — but  I  want  to 
tell  you  the  pleasure  it  has  been  to  me,  both  last  night 
and  to-day,  to  see  you;  I  mean,  of  course,  merely  to 
look  at  you.  You'll  think  I've  cast  manners  to  the 
winds.  One  does,  you  know,  with  a  person  like  you!" 

His  tone  made  a  gulf  so  unexpectedly  wide  between 
itself  and  her  last  words  with  Isabel,  that  it  held 
Olive  for  a  moment  motionless;  he  had  touched  his 
words  with  an  insinuation  as  definite  as  his  look. 

"I'm  afraid  I  must  tell  you  that  it's  fortunate,  in 
that  case,  that  it  doesn't  seem  wise  that  you  should 
do  more!" 

Her  voice  had  a  note  of  firmness  which  did  not 
escape  him,  for  he  made  a  gesture  of  amused  resigna 
tion. 

"No,  probably  you're  right.  You'd  find  me  very 
little,  stripped  of  my  courage,  and  I  should  find  you 
were  less  lovely  as  I  saw  you  oftener.  It's  really 
inexcusable  that  I  should  be  as  rude  as  this!  You're 
keen  on  prerogatives  and  not  on  form  in  America, 
aren't  you?  That's  the  inevitable  result,  I  suppose, 
in  a  country  where  freedom  has  been  too  easy  to  get 
and  too  hard  to  keep."  His  eyes  half  closed.  "That 
colour's  extraordinary,  you  know;  it  suits  you  amaz 
ingly." 

Olive  waited  an  instant.  She  had  felt,  the  night 
before,  the  sudden  sense  of  being  affected  by  his 
admiration,  brief  as  it  had  been;  and  as  he  spoke  she 
had  known  that  her  eyes  softened  to  a  warmer  brown 
and  that  the  colour  touched  her  pallor,  as  clearly  as 

[290] 


ASCENT 

she  had  noted  the  fact  that  the  other  guests  had  seen 
Passmore  approach  her  and  the  interest  which  his 
moves  elicited.  The  gradations  in  her  responses  had, 
in  the  last  months,  been  refined  in  their  variations. 
Yet,  as  her  smile  quivered  under  the  assurance  of  his, 
it  had  her  faint  touch  of  irony.  She  turned  her  face 
to  the  gardens;  what  was  she  drifting  to,  she  wondered, 
that  she  had  passed  to  this  sort  of  acceptance  without 
differentiation,  and  that  she  was  so  far  beyond  either 
the  real  provocation  or  the  real  indifference  which  are 
the  actions  and  reactions  of  feeling? 

"I  wanted  only  to  pay  you  my  tribute,  before  I 
went,"  Passmore  was  continuing;  he  hesitated.  "Of 
course  you  ought,  you  know,  to  have  a  history;  or 
perhaps  you  oughtn't!  It's  more  delightful  to  have 
all  the  signs  of  one  without  the  wear;  and  you  don't 
look,"  he  again  waited,  "you  don't  look  as  if  you'd 
think  anything  worth  the  wear!" 

Olive  returned  his  directness  of  manner;  her  own, 
she  knew,  was  the  more  deeply  sardonic  of  the  two. 
"At  least  one  would  always  be  sure,"  she  said  briefly, 
"that  the  wear  missed  you.  You'd  not  stay  long  enough 
to  see  it.  You  must  let  me  say  that  I  don't  see  you 
dealing  in  mysteries,  Sir  Francis!" 

Passmore  rose,  as  he  laughed.  "Even  amongst  your 
country-people  I've  never  seen  anyone  so  tremendously 
intellectualised  and  so  profoundly  ingenuous!  You're 
no  mystery,  dear  Mrs.  Devon — you're  only  ignorant. 
There!  The  Princess  is  going,  I  see,  and  so  I  can  be 
off.  My  wife's  opening  a  bazaar  somewhere,  and  she's 
promised  to  drop  me.  .  .  ." 


[291] 


XXIII 

OLIVE  had   ordered  her   car,   as   she  left  the 
courtyard  of  B rough  House,  to  turn  away  from 
the  park  and  to  run  slowly,  for  the  next  hour, 
through  the  streets.    She  was  conscious  that  she  wanted 
the  sense  of  anonymity  which  comes  in  a  crowd;  and 
with  her  eyes  following  the  flow  of  traffic  and  the  inter 
mingling  figures  on  the  curb,  she  let  her  thoughts 
wander. 

Since  the  dim  rainy  morning  when  she  first  stood 
on  the  platform  at  Waterloo  and  watched  Devon  busy 
himself  with  finding  a  shelter  for  little  Beatrix  and 
her  nurse  and  struggle  with  the  complexities  of  rescuing 
their  luggage,  she  had  felt,  above  the  throng  of  the 
people  in  the  station  and  the  noises  of  arrival  and 
departure,  how  differently  London  was  to  touch  her 
imagination.  Paris  hung  for  her  in  a  haze  of  delicate 
light.  The  glancing  intelligence  of  the  French  mind 
remained  for  her  like  a  shining  crystal,  which  she  had 
fingered  with  what  she  knew  as  the  finest  form  of  her 
curiosity.  But  even  in  the  dull  morning,  with  the 
fatigue  of  the  crossing  behind  her  and  so  little  to 
shape  the  accent  of  her  impressions,  she  was  at  once 
conscious  of  the  dissemblances  between  this  civilisa 
tion  and  the  enrichment  and  penalty  of  the  French 
civilisation.  The  very  light  in  the  dark  sky  was  not 
as  clear  but  deeper,  not  as  glancing  but  more  lasting, 
than  the  Paris  light,  as  if  it  conserved  reticences 
rather  than  exposed  them.  In  the  close,  grimed  houses 

[292] 


ASCENT 

there  was  a  quality  which  seemed  to  her  so  remote  and 
so  indifferent  of  appreciation  that  it  gave  them  an  air 
of  incomparable  isolation,  and  in  the  isolation  itself 
there  lurked  the  weight  of  greatness  rather  than  of 
brilliancy. 

Her  impressions  had  deepened  day  by  day;  so 
penetratively  that  she  had  never  been  more  conscious 
of  reticences  in  herself,  as  if  to  be  in  a  place  where  all 
the  shadows  had  form  and  life  deepened  the  outline  of 
her  own  evanescence  and  made  her  receptivity  more 
lasting.  Mrs.  Devon  had  chanced  to  be  in  London  for 
the  spring.  It  was  a  season  she  frequently  spent  there, 
at  the  most  expensive  of  hotels,  and  occupied  in  a 
perpetuated  series  of  engagements.  With  her  head  at 
its  familiar  angle  above  the  high  pearl  collar  about  her 
throat  and  the  bird-like  motions  of  her  pink  and  white 
hands,  her  appearance  seemed  to  Olive  more  than  ever 
indicative  of  all  the  absurd  motions  of  her  mind.  Yet 
her  small  glancing  look,  as  it  rested  on  Olive's  deepened 
beauty,  had  its  power  of  penetration.  The  extreme 
limitation  of  her  range,  Olive  sometimes  thought, 
enabled  her  to  see  the  single  point  she  got  with  perfect 
exactness.  Her  sole  comment  was  that  her  daughter- 
in-law  had  evidently  mastered  a  new  arrangement  of 
her  hair;  but  she  set  to  work,  with  complete  willing 
ness  and  good  humour,  to  find  them  a  little  house,  for 
the  next  two  months,  and  through  the  time  when  Devon 
could  excusably  say  he  was  occupied  with  his  competi 
tive  schemes,  between  London  and  Paris. 

What  was  more,  she  had  secured  for  them,  by  means 
of  her  small  machinery — a  word  dropped  here  and 
there  at  a  lunch  table,  and  a  telephone  message  or 
two — a  house  which,  as  Olive  admitted,  could  not 

[293] 


ASCENT 

have  shown  more  fully  the  signs  of  her  particular  form 
of  astuteness.  The  Devons  needed,  as  she  insisted, 
something  much  more  serious  in  tone  than  she  would 
have  needed  herself,  and  what  had  determined  her 
selection  was  that  the  house  in  Hill  street  was  small, 
quiet  and  grave.  Its  air  of  compactness  had  character, 
the  furniture  was  of  a  charming  Adam,  the  nursery 
for  Beatrix  was  light  and  the  servants  were  responsible. 
She  showed  in  such  matters  the  same  minute  efficiency 
which  she  showed  in  the  innumerable  fittings  at  her 
dressmakers'.  She  accepted  Devon's  gratitude  for 
these  services  with  the  same  air  of  puzzled  wonder 
with  which  she  accepted  Olive's  sharp  comments  of 
approval  or  disapproval.  What  had  evidently  seized 
her  fugitive  attention  was  the  baby,  who  in  the  last 
months  had  developed  a  pale  gold  prettiness,  the  image 
of  her  own.  It  was  evidently,  as  Devon  said,  not  the 
child's  increasing  personality  or  her  clinging  charm 
which  impressed  themselves  on  her  glancing  con 
sciousness,  so  much  as  her  own  potentialities  in  the 
position  of  a  grandmother.  It  had  renewed  her  sense 
of  youth  to  be  told  how  incredibly  young  she  looked 
to  be  in  such  a  relation;  and  where  she  had  at  first 
regarded  Beatrix's  existence  as  an  indelicate  reminder 
and  had  invented  pet  names  to  avoid  the  title  of  grand 
mother,  she  now  insisted  on  it  with  persistency,  took 
Beatrix  to  drive  with  her  every  day,  and  compounded 
from  their  devoted  relation  a  philosophy  to  dispose 
of  all  her  sentimental  disasters. 

Olive  sometimes  looked  at  them  together,  with  so 
slight  a  seeming  separation  of  any  of  the  vitality  of 
experience  between  them,  and  wondered  why  she  was 
so  unable  to  get  from  the  touch  of  the  child's  head, 

[294] 


ASCENT 

which  rested  so  closely  against  Mrs.  Devon's  laces  and 
silver  foxes,  any  clarifying  of  her  own  turbulent  uncer 
tainties.  Devon's  constant  preoccupation  for  Beatrix's 
care  was  more  comprehensible  to  her  than  the  complete 
dependence  he  felt  on  her  existence.  With  her  latent 
conviction  that  she  was  being  outdone  in  something 
which  was  by  right  her  due,  she  tried,  several  times, 
to  sit  in  the  evening  by  the  nursery  fire  and  to  hold 
between  her  own  the  pink  fragrant  hands,  warm  from 
their  bath,  in  a  determination  to  blow  her  feeling  into 
a  flame.  But  her  mind  was  too  restless  and  her 
patience  too  thin;  and  she  laid  Beatrix  back  in  her 
bed,  again  and  again,  with  her  rapid  frown.  The  child 
seemed  to  her  too  plainly  contradictory.  She  felt  her 
to  be  the  living  sign  of  her  impulse,  which  had  long 
since  evaporated — not  for  Devon,  but  for  the  fulfilment 
of  rules  of  experience  which  Father  Ames  had  tried 
to  teach  her;  and  what  she  was  more  conscious  of 
than  anything  else  was  the  reactive  sense  of  her  own 
failure. 

It  had  been  easily  in  accordance  with  Devon's  plans 
that  they  should  arrange  to  spend  the  spring  in  London ; 
at  least  he  had  so  perfectly  acquiesced,  when  she  made 
the  suggestion,  that  she  had  been  surprised  at  the  dry 
smile  with  which  he  greeted  her  assumption  that  he 
wanted  to  go. 

"I  do  it  so  well  now,"  he  said,  absently,  "that  you 
don't  question  my  complete  participation;  and  of 
course  you're  right.  I  want  to  go,"  his  eyes  rose  for 
one  of  their  rapid  looks  at  her,  "because  you  want  to." 

They  had  been  sitting  at  dinner,  with  the  table  drawn 
to  the  fire,  on  a  rainy  March  night  when  the  comfort 
of  the  little  apartment  in  the  rue  Pierre  Charron  had 

[295] 


ASCENT 

seemed  more  than  usually  warm  and  full  of  charm. 
But  as  soon  as  the  words  had  left  his  lips,  it  had  been 
evident  from  Devon's  face  that  in  Olive's  uncontrollable 
movement  of  vexation,  he  had  discerned  the  fact  that 
he  had  passed  a  milestone.  It  was  for  the  first  time 
apparent  that  his  feeling  for  her  was  beginning  to 
irritate  her.  Where  before  she  had  brushed  by  it, 
with  the  security  of  indifference,  she  had  none  the 
less  counted  and  insisted  on  its  tribute.  She  had 
dropped  her  fork  to  her  plate;  and  something  in  the 
ring  it  made  sent  his  thoughts  back,  no  less  than  hers, 
in  the  flash  of  an  instant,  to  her  irritation  with  her 
father,  at  Ware,  on  the  evening  they  had  told  him 
of  their  engagement. 

His  indissoluble  reticence  quivered  for  a  moment  be 
neath  the  touch  of  the  recollection,  and  then  gave  way. 

"Do  you  mean  always  to  dispose  of  me;  or  perhaps 
not  even  that — to  cease  to  notice  me?" 

"I  don't  understand  what  you  mean,"  she  had  broken 
in  impatiently. 

"You're  tired,  my  dear  child,  and  that  makes  you 
less  astute  than  usual."  He  rose  and  threw  down  his 
napkin.  The  look  he  bent  on  her  was  charged  with 
a  quality  beyond  her  definition.  "You  have  completely 
the  upper  hand.  You've  every  advantage.  But  there's 
one  thing — don't  mistake  my  acquiescence  for  care 
lessness!  It's  taken  all  my  strength,  you  know — not 
my  weakness — to  accept  the  things  you've  imposed 
on  me." 

"I  know  it's  impossible  for  you  to  explain  why  I  do  or 
don't  do  things  .  .  ."  she  began,  but  he  cut  her  short. 

"Come,  Olive,  you  are  less  astute  than  usual!  You 
know,  if  you  know  anything,  that  if  I  didn't  so  perfectly 

[296] 


ASCENT 

understand  you,  I  shouldn't  bank  all  my  future  on  it." 
Their  eyes  for  a  moment  retraced,  in  their  quick  give 
and  take,  the  stages  of  the  recent  weeks,  and  she  felt 
her  look  waver.  "I  could  explain  to  you  everything, 
even  yourself,"  he  ended,  with  his  brevity  unusually 
sharp;  then  he  drew  out  his  watch.  "I  shan't  finish 
dinner — I'm  off.  They're  doing  some  new  thing  of 
Ravel's  at  the  Comique.  .  .  ." 

As  her  gaze  passed  over  the  movement  of  the  crowds 
and  up  to  the  afternoon  sky,  she  vividly  relived  the 
reaction  of  that  moment,  when  he  had  closed  the  door 
and  left  her,  with  the  candles  and  flowers  and  the  lux 
ury  of  their  dinner  so  suddenly  gone.  She  had  wondered 
then,  as  she  wondered  now,  whether  all  the  stages  of 
her  development  were  to  come  to  her  not  by  growth 
but  by  these  hard  contradictions.  She  knew  that,  in 
the  last  months,  her  thoughts  had  become  less  sensitive. 
The  conviction  that  her  character  was  moulding  into 
lines  less  and  less  malleable  increased  in  her  almost 
daily.  Outwardly  she  felt  herself  little  changed.  Her 
dominance  was  even  quicker,  in  the  immediacy  of 
its  effect,  and  the  broadening  of  her  contacts  had  given 
it  more  point  and  form.  But  she  had  the  persistent 
sense  that,  even  in  the  brilliancy  of  her  weeks  in 
France,  she  had  had  a  less  fine  receptivity  than  in  the 
period  when  she  had  been  so  eager  to  be  swayed  and 
influenced  by  Father  Ames;  and  that  to  him  she  had 
brought  something  less  susceptive  and  sincere  than  even 
the  crudity  of  her  girlhood. 

It  was  not  Rivaudiere's  loss  which  she  had  most  felt, 
in  the  chill  of  the  afternoon  at  Fontainebleau  which  had 
so  clearly  terminated  their  possibilities  of  feeling.  Even 
then,  and  in  the  empty  silence  in  which  they  had  driven 

[297] 


ASCENT 

back  to  town,  she  had  realised  that  one  of  the  torments 
of  her  incapacity  was  that  she  could  not  experience  the 
wrench  or  depletion  of  a  live  regret,  in  the  knowledge 
that  their  relation  was  as  plainly  ended  as  if  it  had  been 
struck  a  blow.  But  she  had  had  a  humiliating  con 
sciousness  that  she  was  hurt,  less  intact  and  less  secure 
and  with  her  loveliness  tarnished.  What  was  slipping 
from  her  was  all  the  quickness  of  differentiation,  the 
stimulation  of  taste  and  the  refinement  of  pleasure, 
which  Rivaudiere  had  carried  so  like  a  waving  banner. 
She  had  lost  in  him  something  beyond  himself;  and 
in  his  complete  incapacity  to  comprehend  her,  his  per 
fect  refusal  to  be  involved  in  any  experiment  of  feeling 
except  a  real  one,  she  felt  herself  more  deeply  degraded 
than  she  could  have  believed  degradation  possible. 
They  met  a  few  times  more  in  Paris,  for  his  care  for 
appearances  was  as  natural  to  him  as  his  breathing; 
but  the  flawlessness  of  his  politeness,  his  easy  inclusion 
of  Devon  and  his  sudden  engagement  to  play  polo  at 
Biarritz,  lay  like  a  scar  on  the  fine  tissue  of  her  mind. 
She  turned  from  it  as  instinctively  as  she  turned  from 
her  memories  of  Father  Ames,  and  with  a  humiliation 
almost  as  deep. 

Her  innate  response  to  the  stimulation  of  what  was 
new  to  her  sprang  to  life,  however,  in  her  first  days 
in  London.  With  the  same  pliancy  with  which  she 
had  responded  to  the  touch  of  Paris,  she  felt  herself 
fall  into  the  key  of  her  present  surroundings.  Her 
natural  astuteness  marked  for  her  the  limits  of  how 
far  this  should  be  apparent  and  placed  the  accent  of 
sophistication  on  her  reticences  and  refusals;  but 
something  in  the  quick,  surface  dealing  with  the  human 
exemplification,  rather  than  with  the  French  criticism 

[298] 


ASCENT 

and  comment,  was  of  peculiar  appeal  to  her  at  the 
moment.  Mrs.  Devon  was  always  ready  with  a  sug 
gestion  or  an  invitation,  or  had  someone  especially 
in  mind  whom  it  would  amuse  to  see  her.  Olive  noted 
that  her  mother-in-law  had  long  since  given  up  any 
attempt  to  deal  with  her  except  on  the  basis  of  how 
she  affected  other  people,  as  if  she  were  a  curiosity  to 
be  produced  for  an  inspection  which  need  never  be 
repeated.  She  was  ready  enough  to  live  these  agitated 
days,  conscious  everywhere  either  of  admiration  or 
of  the  resentment  which  always  indicated,  in  her 
opinion,  the  same  tribute,  to  absorb  herself  in  the 
multiplicity  of  her  engagements,  in  driving  out  to  Hur- 
lingham  or  in  the  selection  of  her  summer  frocks. 
Sometimes,  when  she  stood  before  a  picture,  with  Mrs. 
Devon's  ceaseless  readiness  of  comment  beside  her  and 
an  eye  always  alert  to  see  who  composed  the  crowd  of 
a  vanishing  day,  she  reminded  herself  that  she  was  not 
seeing  what  was  in  front  of  her;  that  it  was  weeks 
since  she  had  used  her  eyes,  weeks  since  she  had  read, 
and  that  music  struck  her  eardrums  and  no  further. 
If  she  caught  sight  of  herself,  outlined  against  other 
figures,  her  appearance  itself  seemed  written  over  with 
the  progress  of  these  processes.  Her  beauty  had  a 
stronger  accent.  In  spite  of  her  maintenance  of  its 
delicacy,  it  was  heavier  in  outline  and  coarser  in 
effect;  with  the  same  coarsening,  she  sometimes  told 
herself,  with  one  of  her  sharp  turns  of  recognition,  that 
one  saw  in  the  progression  of  narcotism. 

She  had  agreed  to  be  at  home  by  four  if  she  wanted 
to  join  Devon  and  his  mother,  who  were  driving  out 
in  Mrs.  Devon's  motor  to  see  the  tennis  at  Wimbledon. 

[299] 


ASCENT 

But  her  reflections  had  left  her  listless,  and  with  her 
more  and  more  constant  touch  of  nervous  irritability 
she  watched  the  little  clock  in  front  of  her  pass  the 
hour  and  then  called  to  the  chauffeur  the  Hill  street 
address. 

She  was  indeterminately  aware  that  the  parlour 
maid,  at  the  door,  looked  at  her  with  an  odd  suggestion 
of  both  evasion  and  curiosity,  as  she  murmured  that 
tea  was  in  the  drawing  room.  Olive  went  up  the  stairs 
and  opened  the  door  on  the  small  brownish  room,  with 
the  afternoon  sun  striking  through  the  long  windows 
and  lighting  the  clusters  of  flowering  plants  and  the 
yellow  inlay  of  the  old  brown  furniture.  A  man  was 
standing  on  the  hearth  rug,  in  evident  expectation  of 
her  entrance.  He  threw  down  his  cigarette  and  turned, 
as  she  closed  the  door;  and  she  saw  that  it  was  Pass- 
more. 

It  was  immediate  to  her  that  his  errand  was  beyond 
the  need,  for  the  instant,  of  any  comment.  His  single 
look,  which  he  maintained  and  deepened,  caught  her 
as  firmly  as  a  grasp  with  its  significances.  She  had 
become  familiar  enough  with  his  face,  in  the  illustra 
tions  of  papers,  in  public,  across  the  House,  and  last 
night  at  dinner  and  to-day  at  lunch;  but  what  the  bald 
ness  of  his  quick  smile  revealed  was  something  far 
more,  as  the  criticism  of  life  she  had  inherited  could 
not  deny,  than  any  temporary  and  personal  purpose. 
He  was  representative,  she  felt,  the  perfect  example  of 
a  mind  with  power  and  without  imagination,  which  used 
fineness  and  never  responded  to  it.  In  the  rawness  of 
his  assurance  and  the  security  with  which  he  stood, 
watching  in  her  face  the  effect  of  his  sudden  presence, 
she  could  feel  all  that  had  made  him  and  all  that  might 

[300] 


ASCENT 

at  any  second  unmake  him.  It  shot  through  her  mind 
that,  in  her  search  for  feeling  and  her  eager  responsive 
ness  to  the  surface  stimulus,  she  had  become  almost 
imitatively  like  the  people  who  influenced  her;  and  she 
wondered,  with  her  wonder  sustained  for  a  long  second, 
if  she  were  to  become  like  Passmore. 

"You  see,  my  dear  Mrs.  Devon,"  he  broke  the 
silence  easily,  "I  wanted  to  belie  as  soon  as  possible  the 
theory  that  we  shouldn't  again  meet;  and  on  my  way 
from  my  meeting  I  stopped,  to  see  if  your  plans  had 
changed  with  your  husband's.  .  .  ." 

Olive  remained  where  she  had  paused,  with  her  arm 
over  the  back  of  one  of  the  chairs  by  the  hearth.  The 
futility  of  any  of  the  usual  expressions  and  comments 
struck  her  so  completely  that  for  a  moment  she  did 
not  speak. 

"My  plans — changed?  I  don't  understand!"  she 
said  briefly. 

"Ah,  then  I'm  glad  I  waited!  Your  servants  said 
you'd  shortly  be  in,  and  so  I  made  up  my  mind  to  give 
you  at  least  a  second  or  two  to  arrive  before  I  left. 
Oddly  enough,  when  I  stopped  for  an  instant  at  my 
wife's  bazaar  for  whatever  it  was,  the  first  person  I  ran 
across  was  your  charming  mother-in-law;  and  she  told 
me,  in  a  distracted  way,  this  news  which  I  seem  to  be 
the  first  to  bring  you." 

Olive's  eyebrows  lifted  a  little.    "Well?"  she  asked. 

"It  appears  that  your  father-in-law's  very  ill— 
they've  had  two  or  three  cables,  all  in  a  rush ;  and  your 
mother-in-law  and  your  husband  are  sailing  instantly, 
at  dawn  to-morrow,  or  something  like  that,  to  join  him. 
Mrs.  Devon  was  quite  delightful  in  wanting  to  share 
with  me  the  confidences  of  her  life  and  to  tell  me  why 

[301] 


ASCENT 

she  must  go  to  her  husband,  whether  he  wanted  her  or 
no!  But  I  hadn't,  unfortunately,  the  time.  I  merely 
said  I  hoped  it  didn't  mean  you'd  also  go;  and  she  said 
she  thought  certainly  not,  and  flew  off  to  make  her 
arrangements.  They'll  be  here  in  a  moment,  probably, 
all  excitement  and  activity;  meanwhile  I  wanted,  for 
just  a  second,  to  see  you.  .  .  ." 

The  step  he  had  taken  nearer  her  was  his  sole 
motion;  yet  under  his  glance  she  felt,  above  the  rapid 
whirl  of  her  thoughts,  the  closer  pressure  of  his  insist 
ence.  "I  hope,"  he  pursued,  "that  it's  definite  that 
you  won't  go?" 

She  answered  him  immediately.  "No.  I  shan't  go." 
As  their  silence  again  fell,  something  made  her 
conscious  that  her  look  was  giving  him  a  response 
more  definite  than  her  words.  Her  head  had  gradually 
lifted,  with  its  backward  tilt  emphasising  the  depth  of 
her  eyes  and  the  firmness  of  her  chin.  She  knew  that 
the  expression  with  which  she  met  his  was  as  beyond 
resentment  and  beyond  any  insistence  on  his  disregard 
of  conformities,  as  she  knew  the  tension  of  the  few 
seconds  behind  them.  She  had,  she  felt,  a  smile  lighter 
than  his  own,  of  a  deeper  derision,  and  at  a  wreckage 
of  things  he  couldn't  measure.  It  evidently  caught  his 
attention  for  a  quick  second.  She  could  see  him  note 
it,  with  a  touch  of  incomprehension,  and  then  return 
to  the  simplicity  of  his  usual  judgments;  and  he 
opened  the  door  and  left  her,  with  his  voice  breaking, 
in  the  hall  and  in  earshot  of  the  waiting  parlour-maid, 
into  expressions  of  regret  that  they  had  been  put  to  all 
this  worry  and  confusion. 


[302] 


XXIV 

OLIVE  was  still  standing  with  her  arm  across 
the  chair  and  her  eyes  set  on  the  sensitive 
designs  of  the  shifting  sunlight  on  the  floor 
when,  a  few  moments  later,  Devon  came  in. 

Even  with  her  attention  so  heavily  concentrated  at 
a  sole  point,  she  saw  at  once  the  gravity  of  the  line  of 
preoccupation  drawn  between  his  eyes.  He  dropped 
into  the  armchair  at  the  farther  side  of  the  fire,  with 
a  breath  of  fatigue. 

"Heavens,  that  was  luck — but  I've  done  it!  Mother 
hasn't  stopped  here,  on  her  way  to  Claridge's,  to  tell 
you?  We're  off,  she  and  I,  from  Liverpool  to-mor 
row.  By  the  merest  chance  I  got  two  cabins  and  put 
all  our  arrangements  through  before  the  offices  closed. 
I  had  a  cable  just  after  you'd  left  for  your  lunch,  and 
I  rang  her  up  and  found  she'd  had  two,  within  the  hour. 
Father's  gravely  ill.  We  must  face  it  clearly  that  the 
facts  are  all  against  him.  A  bad  bronchial  pneumonia 
— and  at  sixty-eight,  and  with  his  habits  of  neglecting 
himself  ..." 

He  seemed  finally  to  notice  her,  and  the  face  he 
turned  to  her  softened. 

"I  knew  you'd  understand  that  I  had  to  decide  it 
instantly.  If  all  goes  well,  I  can  be  back  here,  and 
finish  up  my  work  in  Paris,  within  three  weeks  or  so; 
if  it  doesn't — that  must  take  care  of  itself.  There 
wasn't  time  to  talk  it  over  with  you.  But  I  felt  of 
course  that  you  wouldn't  want  to  go.  .  .  ." 

She  murmured  how  sorry  she  was,  and  how  desirous 
[303] 


ASCENT 

to  help  him,  how  hard  it  seemed,  with  the  final  days 
of  the  competition  at  hand  and  with  all  his  plans  so 
adjusted.  But  he  caught  her  up. 

"Oh,  I  can  think  of  nothing  but  that  wretched 
uncomfortable  little  house,  strewn  with  jades  and 
dust.  It  was  the  Wickford  doctor  who  evidently 
insisted  on  telegraphing;  and  I've  cabled  the  two  best 
specialists  I  could  think  of  to  go  on  from  New  York, 
immediately.  .  .  It's  heavily  on  my  mind  that  I've 
not  been  square  about  it — not  right.  I  know  him  so  well 
— I  know  all  his  helplessnesses  and  his  shyness;  and 
yet  I've  been  off  for  months,  living  my  own  life — 

"You've  scarcely  been  doing  that,"  she  interrupted 
him  with  one  of  her  sudden  turns.  "It's  been  mine." 

His  smile  caught  her  eyes.  "Well,  it's  the  same 
thing.  I've  had  my  ideas,  vague  as  they've  seemed; 
and  I've  been  set  on  following  them  through  to  an 
end.  .  .  .  And  now  this  comes — !"  His  quizzical  look 
deepened.  "I  really  should  have  waited  till  the  Satur 
day  boat,  so  as  to  make  things  more  secure  for  your 
comfort,  if  mother  hadn't  insisted  on  rushing  off 
to-morrow.  Nothing  will  deter  her.  She's  bent  on  a 
scene,  on  some  drama  of  reconciliation;  and  you  can 
guess  what  that  will  mean!  It's  an  emotional  pos 
sibility  which  stirs  all  her  imagination  ...  I  think 
the  best  thing  you  can  do,  if  you  will,  is  to  go  to  her 
now  and  let  her  unburden  herself  of  all  the  feeling 
which  she'll  have  accumulated  since  I  left  her." 

He  had  risen,  as  he  glanced  at  his  watch,  and  coming 
over  to  her  he  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders.  "You'll 
be  all  right?"  was  all  he  said.  But  his  look  at  her 
penetrated  like  a  swiftly  flung  light  amongst  the 
shadows  in  her  mind. 

[304] 


ASCENT 

She  felt  herself  sway  uncertainly,  with  her  will  sud 
denly  dissolved  in  a  complete  fatigue.  It  seemed 
impossible  for  her  to  frame  any  words. 

Devon  held  his  glance  on  her.  "Of  course  I  know 
how  safe  you  are  here,  and  I'll  leave  everything  in 
order  for  you  at  the  bank.  And  there  are  so  many 
people  to  do  things  for  you  and  give  you  a  good  time. 
It's  only  my  absurd  idea  about  you,  always,  you 
know!"  His  smile  showed  again.  "For  all  your  seem 
ing  confidence  and  independence,  you've  something 
impending — I'm  always  imagining — poised  over  you, 
like  a  poised  fate.  ..." 

She  was  conscious,  with  her  rarely  stirred  prehen- 
siveness,  that  he  meant  it  to  be  the  instant  of  their 
good-bye.  For  a  second  the  desire  to  make  him  some 
sign  held  her  forcibly;  then  her  disbelief  in  even  her 
own  pain  reasserted  itself,  and  she  felt  the  moment 
pass. 

"The  car's  still  waiting,  I  suppose?"  she  said.  "Then 
I'll  go  to  your  mother  at  once." 

They  left  the  next  morning.  As  the  train  pulled  out 
from  the  Euston  platform,  and  with  her  last  vision  of 
Mrs.  Devon's  small  agitated  hand,  waving  in  the 
various  directions  of  the  friends  who  had  come  to  see 
her  off,  and  of  Devon's  preoccupied  face,  over  her 
shoulder,  Olive  had  the  sharpest  sense  of  the  closure 
of  a  stage  of  her  existence.  On  her  return  to  the  house 
in  Hill  street,  its  silence,  on  the  sunny  morning,  after 
the  constant  stir  of  trunks  and  messengers,  seemed  to 
her  symbolic.  Beatrix  was  in  the  park  with  her  nurse; 
the  regularity  of  her  small  hours  never  impinged,  in 
any  case,  on  Olive's  attention,  and  she  sat  down  at  her 
desk,  in  the  drawing  room,  to  answer  a  few  notes  and 

[305] 


ASCENT 

rearrange  some  of  her  engagements,  in  view  of  Devon's 
departure,  with  a  sudden  drop  of  relaxation.  But  as 
she  looked  across  the  room,  to  where  Passmore  had 
stood  for  their  few  moments'  exchange,  she  felt  her 
expression  harden  into  fixity.  Her  pen  fell  from  her 
fingers.  In  the  long  concentration  in  which  she  stared 
at  the  empty  space  which  he  had  so  peopled,  she  meas 
ured,  for  the  first  time,  her  change  of  balance.  In  her 
decisive  determination  for  acquirement,  she  saw  that 
she  was  prepared  to  yield  the  integrity  of  her  will  to  his 
management.  She  felt  all  the  irony  of  the  thought  that 
this  should  be  the  most  difficult  form  of  her  surrender. 
No  control  she  had  ever  put  on  herself  was  harder  than 
this  consent  to  nullify  her  own  choice  and  her  own  judg 
ments.  Yet  she  understood  that  it  was  only  by  an 
acquiescence  such  as  a  person  of  his  type  exacted  that 
she  could  penetrate  and  possess  the  realities  most 
people  knew  and  of  which  she  was  still  so  ignorant.  In 
the  stillness  of  the  house,  with  the  low  murmur  of  the 
streets  coming  through  the  open  windows  and  the  room 
so  quiet  that  she  heard  the  faint  stir  of  the  flowers  on 
the  table  beside  her  in  the  draught,  the  tick  of  the  little 
clock  on  the  desk  caught  her  half  conscious  attention. 
She  dropped  her  eyes  to  it.  It  was  an  old  French  one, 
scarcely  more  than  the  length  of  her  hand,  with  delicate 
gold-bronze  figures  traced  against  the  fawn-coloured 
marble.  It  had  one  day  caught  Devon's  interest,  in 
one  of  the  old  shops  he  frequented,  and  he  had  brought 
it  home  to  her,  with  one  of  his  vague  comments  and  his 
air  of  waiting  to  see  her  pleasure.  He  had  given  her 
everything  he  had  ever  offered  her  in  just  this  way, 
she  recalled — the  various  things  he  had  made  special 
gifts  in  the  house  in  New  York,  her  furs,  her  rings,  all 

[306] 


ASCENT 

showing  the  mark  of  his  exigent  taste.  His  look,  as 
he  put  them  in  her  hands,  seemed  to  her  always  to 
have  contained  an  element  of  half  amused  doubt; 
not  so  much,  she  could  have  fancied,  as  to  whether  the 
gift  were  equal  to  her  but  equal  to  his  feeling  for 
her.  .  .  .  But  the  sound  of  the  hurried  hands  carried 
her  thought  beyond  these  facts.  She  was  across  the 
intervening  spaces,  as  she  followed  the  thread  of  recol 
lection,  and  back  beside  her  grandfather's  bed  at  Ware, 
with  the  little  china  clock  making  its  fatuous  sound  on 
the  mantel  and  his  dim  deep  gaze  set  on  her  with  the 
peculiar  intensity  of  the  moment.  Time,  it  seemed  to 
her,  had  suddenly  flung  about  her  again  its  network  of 
enclosure.  The  little  she  had  done  and  had,  the  per 
vasive  restlessness  of  her  hope,  the  nervousness  of  an 
aspiration  which  was  all  individual,  drew  with  a  sharp 
stroke  across  her  stretched  perceptions,  like  the  bow 
of  a  violin  which  emitted  no  sound.  .  .  . 

She  was  fully  expectant  of  a  message  from  Passmore, 
during  the  day.  Yet  she  had  no  word  from  him  until 
the  middle  of  the  following  week.  One  afternoon  in 
Bond  street,  his  tall  figure  suddenly  detached  itself 
from  the  crowd,  as  he  paused  to  speak  to  a  man  who 
had  arrested  him;  and  the  instant  her  eyes  lit  on  him 
she  realised  how  potently  the  memory  of  their  interview 
lay  in  her  mind  and  how  keenly  she  was  keyed  to  the 
expectation  of  what  his  next  sign  to  her  would  be.  She 
realised  something  more.  He  turned  deliberately,  as 
her  car  was  held  by  the  traffic,  and  bowed  to  her.  Even 
across  the  distance  between  them,  his  manner  seemed  to 
her  charged  with  definiteness  and  decision;  and  in  a 
flash  there  was  apparent  to  her  the  fact  that  his  coarse 
ness  was  only  the  coarser  for  having  its  inflexions.  The 

[307] 


ASCENT 

courtesy  of  his  smile  carried  an  assumption  which  no 
broader  statement  could  have  equalled;  and  his  post 
ponement  of  an  attempt  to  see  her  had,  in  the  light 
of  her  growing  knowledge  of  him,  a  sudden  implication 
that  in  the  delay  he  was  only  giving  her  time  to  realise 
the  assurance  of  facts  as  to  whose  ultimacy  he  felt  no 
doubt. 

When  she  got  back  to  Hill  street  she  found  that  he 
had  already  telephoned  a  message  for  her,  as  if  their 
mute  interchange  had  decided  him.  He  would  call 
for  her  in  his  car  early  the  next  afternoon,  the  message 
ran,  to  run  her  out  to  the  country  for  tea,  if  she  could 
arrange  to  be  free.  As  the  maid  recited  the  phrase, 
Olive's  smile  rose  at  the  final  words.  Their  careful 
courtesy,  she  thought,  could  not  impose  on  her  cyn 
icism.  He  would  continue  to  make  his  concessions 
to  appearance  perfect;  but  he  would  not  for  a  moment 
let  her  forget  the  fact  that  they  were  to  impress 
the  servants  rather  than  to  placate  her.  She  was 
drawing  off  her  gloves  in  front  of  her  dressing  table, 
as  the  woman  spoke,  and  she  caught  in  her  mirror  the 
reflection  of  her  eyes.  Something  in  them  held  her. 
She  saw  behind  her  the  accustomed  room,  the  white 
ness  of  the  curtains,  the  maid's  face  over  her  shoulder 
and  the  gold-topped  bottles  and  boxes  in  front  of  her. 
Yet  all  the  security  of  habit  and  the  protection  of  the 
presuppositions  in  which  she  had  lived  seemed  suddenly 
annihilated  by  his  complete  confidence  in  her  acqui 
escence.  She  was  as  conscious  as  if  she  had  traced 
the  lines  connecting  them  that  it  was  this  sense  which 
made  her  fling  down  her  gloves  and  say:  "Yes — tele 
phone  Sir  Francis  Passmore  that  I  can  arrange  to  be 
disengaged  at  three  o'clock." 

[308] 


ASCENT 

The  afternoon  had  turned  hazy  and  softer  than  the 
sunlight  when  Passmore,  at  the  door  of  the  little  Inn 
at  Horsham,  had  given  her  a  cushion  and  put  a  rug 
about  her  knees  for  the  drive  home.  He  had  insisted 
on  stopping  in  the  long  village  street,  with  the  closed 
house  fronts  facing  them  with  the  English  imperturb 
ability,  and  going  into  the  deserted  parlour  of  the  Inn 
for  tea,  so  as  not  to  have  the  bother,  as  he  put  it,  of 
being  roped  behind  the  great  iron  gates  which  gave  so 
magnificently  on  the  more  open  high-road. 

"The  trouble  with  me  is,  you  see,  that  I'm  uncon- 
cealable,"  he  had  exclaimed  tartly.  "Of  course  Isabel 
Bourdas  would  say  that  most  of  the  time  I  like  it; 
but  on  this  occasion  it  would  probably  mean  that  we 
were  let  in  for  a  huge  family  gathering  of  Godlys, 
who  are  always,  you  know,  here.  Oh,  they'll  discover 
me,  even  in  this  place;  but  not  until  it's  too  late  to 
annoy  us.  So  if  you  don't  mind  execrable  teacake  .  .  ." 

The  words  drew  from  Olive  the  same  smile  she  had 
met  him  with,  at  her  door.  She  had  the  sense  that  she 
was  as  removed  from  him  as  she  felt  the  wrapping  of 
her  dark  veils  to  remove  her;  yet  something  revealed  to 
her  that  their  separation  itself  was  part  of  the  planning 
of  his  astuteness.  He  had  driven  her  out  in  an  open 
motor,  with  his  chauffeur  behind  them,  in  reach  of 
every  word.  Their  talk  across  the  stolid  round  table 
of  the  little  parlour  might  have  taken  place  before  a 
crowd.  Passmore  had  touched  lightly  on  one  or  two 
people  she  knew,  on  her  portrait,  which  was  just  on 
exhibition,  by  a  clever  young  friend  of  Devon's — 
"your  husband's  got  an  eye,  it  appears;  do  you  know 
it?  Terence  Bourdas  says  he  has  the  best  natural 
taste  he  knows  .  .  .  they've  met  over  prints,  it 

[309] 


seems;"  on  the  inaccuracies  in  the  newest  book  of 
historical  gossip,  and  on  some  of  the  things  which,  in 
America,  had  impressed  him  extraordinarily  when  he 
was  there  as  special  envoy.  "You're  an  amazing  people, 
aren't  you?  Admirable,  serious  .  .  .  that's  as  I  saw 
you,  with  purpose,  fairness  and  uplift  in  everything  you 
do!  I  don't  at  all  make  you  out  as  hard-hearted  or 
vain  or  selfish,  but  just  as  very  middle-class.  You're 
not  young,  you're  raw.  Youth  knows  so  much  by 
instinct — France  is  eternally  young;  and  even  your 
vices  seemed  to  me  so  sadly  inefficient.  The  aristo 
cratic  sins  are  the  worst,  you  know.  .  .  ."  And  he 
passed  on  to  speak  of  a  young  General  who  had  just 
gone  out  to  try  his  hand  at  the  Turkish  situation  and 
of  what  he  hoped  might  shape  itself  as  a  policy  at  a 
forth-coming  Council  of  Ambassadors  at  the  Hague. 
She  felt  the  flattery  of  his  easy  allusions,  but  he  never 
for  a  moment  flattered  her.  Her  grandfather  had  given 
her  the  habit  of  a  political  curiosity  and  of  political 
opinions;  but  when  she  questioned  Passmore  or 
expressed  a  view,  he  put  her  easily  aside.  Not  only  the 
assurance  of  a  habit  of  defence  but  also  his  personal 
computation  of  her  seemed  to  bar  the  way,  with  com 
plete  defmiteness,  to  the  entrance  of  any  note  which 
he  did  not  determine;  and  under  her  consciousness  of 
his  relegation  of  her  she  had  felt  her  flush  rise,  beneath 
the  folds  of  gauze  which  covered  her  face. 

His  conveyances  to  her  had  been  so  entirely  com 
pounded  of  implications  that  she  was  alive  to  the  light 
change  in  his  manner,  as  he  took  his  place  beside  her 
for  the  drive  back  to  town.  His  sudden  observance 
concerning  her  comfort  had  struck  her;  and  his  glance, 
as  she  caught  it  through  her  veil,  had  a  deeper  commit- 

[310] 


ASCENT 

ment.  For  the  first  miles  he  was  silent.  Every  now  and 
then,  with  a  gesture  the  man  behind  them  must  miss,  he 
drew  up  her  rug  and  asked  her  if  she  were  tired.  His 
voice  had  none  of  the  accent  of  solicitude,  but  of  an 
intimacy  the  closer  in  that  it  was  so  terse;  and  she 
was  not  surprised  when,  as  the  houses  began  to  gather 
in  the  first  suburbs,  he  spoke  abruptly  and  with  a 
definite  change  of  tone. 

"One  wonders,  you  know,  what  all  you  Americans — 
since  we've  been  speaking  of  you — get  out  of  life. 
Most  of  you  are  so  unwilling  to  involve  yourselves, 
and  above  all  in  the  human  relations.  You,  for 
instance, — you're  all  the  curiosity  of  your  mind;  where 
if  you  were  of  an  older  race,  you'd  realise  that  there's 
a  different — shall  we  say  empiricism?" 

She  had  a  defensive  determination  to  draw  his  words 
back  to  their  widest  issues. 

''Don't  forget  that  we've  in  America  our  own 
methods,  as  well  as  you,"  she  spoke  uncertainly.  "And 
even  if  we've  only  the  illusion  of  them,  at  least  we've 
codified  them  into  a  creed!" 

"But  you've  codified  them!  And  a  codified  illusion 
— great  heaven,  how  hideous!  Strange,  though,  that 
with  all  your  instinct  to  make  codes  you  never  see  a 
fact."  He  turned  with  deliberation,  in  his  seat,  to  face 
her  fully.  "You,  for  instance, — you  don't  see  a  fact." 

"I  see  what  I  consent  to  see,"  she  said  clearly;  the 
play  of  his  words  was  so  perfectly  indirect  that  at  one 
moment  she  felt  she  must  have  mistaken  all  his  insinua 
tions,  and  at  the  next  that  they  were  the  surest  point 
of  his  method. 

"Then  you  miss — and  of  course  you  know  it — all  the 
existence  of  existence.  How  dull  it  would  be,  to  live 


ASCENT 

only  by  one's  dull  determinations!  As  if  it  rested  with 
you!"  He  gave  a  brief  glance,  to  measure  the  atten 
tion  of  the  man  over  his  shoulder.  "But  of  course  it 
does,  you  know!" 

She  met  him  for  a  full  instant.    "Ah,  but  it  doesn't." 

His  smile  at  her  suddenly  deepened. 

"That's  charming  of  you!  You've  a  largeness  of 
generosity,  a  magnificence— what  is  really  an  imperial 
quality." 

Olive's  face  darkened  in  one  of  its  ready  changes. 
"Yes — in  the  terms  of  my  fate,  I  sometimes  think  I 
have." 

Passmore  laughed.  "Possibly  it  sounds  better  to  call 
it  fate!" 

She  felt  herself  caught  by  an  irresistible  impulse  for 
frankness,  and  she  turned  sharply  on  him.  "Do  you 
see  nothing  but  what's  visible — nothing  but  what  you 
can  touch?"  she  broke  out. 

"Nothing!  I've  found,  I  admit,  that  it's  the  only 
way  which  pays."  His  smile  held  for  an  instant  more, 
and  then  his  voice  fell  into  its  former  key.  "And  here's 
London  upon  us.  In  a  moment  we'll  be  in  the  worst 
of  crowds.  You've  indeed  been  delightful  to  come. 
You're  dining  at  Brough  House  to-morrow,  aren't 
you?  So,  by  chance,  am  I.  Just  what  they  call  a 
family  party,  the  Duke  told  me;  what  a  relief  after 
the  mob  one  generally  finds  there!  But  the  Duchess, 
who's  of  course  a  dear,  is  never  happy  unless  she's  in 
Piccadilly.  .  .  ." 


[312] 


XXV 

THE  force  of  Passmore's  tone  and  its  concentra 
tion,  beneath  its  practised  fluency,  caught 
Olive  again  when  she  faced  him,  across  the 
dinner  table  at  Brough  House,  the  next  evening.  In 
the  intervening  hours  she  had  gone  ceaselessly  over  the 
few  sentences  of  their  conversation,  its  careful  attenua 
tions  and  its  sudden  flares  of  significance.  She  felt  the 
confusion  which  his  confidence  inspired.  It  was 
difficult  for  her  to  trace  the  convergence  between  his 
rapidity  of  touch,  his  easy  relegations,  and  the  warmth 
which  so  evidently  generated  them.  Her  own  realism, 
as  she  was  fully  conscious,  was  as  intact  in  its  opera 
tions  as  his.  She  saw  him  without  the  slightest  illusion 
to  soften  his  image.  His  mind  seemed  to  her  totally 
without  the  embroidery  and  bloom  of  comment  and 
bare  of  any  grace  of  appreciation,  and  solely  a  secure 
instrument  for  dealing  with  his  own  universe.  With 
the  increasing  obsession  of  her  curiosity  as  to  such 
methods,  she  had  relived  each  second  of  their  after 
noon  together.  The  sense  that  her  nature  was  exposed 
to  him — that  because  of  his  own  particular  qualities  he 
was  able  to  divine  her  insecurity,  her  inhibitions,  her 
lack  of  any  physical  prescience  and  the  uncertainty  of 
her  audacities,  had  already  given  her  a  belief  in  the 
fatality  of  her  concessions  to  him;  and  she  was  con 
scious  of  a  shock  of  actuality  when,  as  she  faced  him 
between  the  high  branched  candelabra  and  over  the 
wide  gold  epergnes,  she  heard  his  voice  fall  again  into 


ASCENT 

the  same  kind  of  phrase  which  was  so  vividly  running 
in  her  thoughts. 

Every  now  and  then,  from  her  place  beside  the  Duke, 
she  caught  Passmore's  glance.  There  lay  in  it  a  con 
viction  rather  than  a  message,  something  evidently 
allied  to  their  interchange  of  the  day  before,  and  at 
moments  she  felt  herself  slight  and  uncertain  under  its 
import.  He  was  talking  constantly,  with  the  ease  of 
his  intimacy  in  the  house;  and  it  appeared  to  her  not 
the  smallest  of  his  capacities  that  he  could  so  per 
fectly  maintain  the  flow  of  his  comment,  his  tart 
friendly  give  and  take  with  Lord  Terence,  his  affec 
tionate  intolerance  of  the  Duchess  and  his  attention 
to  the  Duke,  and  combine  with  these  an  implication 
to  herself,  so  private  yet  so  definite  that  her  thin 
shoulders  straightened  whenever  she  caught  the  turn 
of  his  head  or  the  motion  of  his  hands. 

The  Duchess  had  for  once  belied  her  reputation, 
and  there  was  gathered  about  the  table  only  the  always 
large  family  group, — young  Lord  and  Lady  Harring- 
ford,  who  were  up  from  the  country,  the  Duke's 
secretary,  and  Terence  and  Isabel  Bourdas.  Olive  had 
measured  the  implied  flattery  of  this  inclusion — to 
cheer  her  up,  as  Lady  Isabel  put  it,  until  she  heard 
better  news  from  Devon  and  her  mother-in-law — as 
carefully  as  she  had  measured  the  effect  of  her  black 
lace  against  the  magnificent  dull  gilt  of  the  panelling 
behind  her,  the  slimness  of  her  silvery  shoes  and  the 
delicacy  of  the  diamonds  in  her  hair.  She  was  aware 
that  Passmore  not  only  computed  these  facts,  but  that 
her  beauty  was  enhanced  for  him  because  of  Isabel's 
admission  of  her  to  so  warm  a  friendliness.  She  felt 
that  throughout  the  dinner  she  managed  to  maintain 


ASCENT 

her  own  tone,  in  her  responses  to  the  old  Duke  and 
in  her  reserves  with  the  Duchess,  in  spite  of  the  pres 
sure  on  her  nerves  of  Passmore's  look.  Her  alert  dis- 
trustfulness  divined  that  there  was  only  one  direction 
from  which  any  question  lit  on  the  changes  of  her 
face.  Once  she  caught  Isabel  Bourdas'  -eyes;  and  the 
lack  of  any  repetition  of  the  glance  warned  her  as 
rapidly  as  Passmore's  insistent  care  to  defer  to  the 
raillery  of  Isabel's  tone  with  him. 

She  was  too  experienced,  by  now,  to  dispose  of  this 
attitude  by  assuming  it  to  be  a  tribute.  She  knew  she 
could  deal  more  securely  with  the  Duchess's  uncon 
cealed  suspicion  of  anyone  who  was  capable  of  enjoying 
the  inconvenience  and  extravagance  of  displacement, 
than  she  could  deal  with  the  cordiality  of  Isabel's 
assurances.  She  could  not  clarify  the  causes  of  such 
a  kindness;  and  when  Isabel  had  for  the  final  time 
assured  her  mother  and  sister-in-law  that  they  were 
dull  and  unimaginative  and  that  it  took  a  modern  young 
creature  like  Mrs.  Devon  to  wake  them  up,  and  then 
turned  to  her,  to  ask  if  she  would  care  to  see  the 
Raphael,  she  had  acquiesced  readily,  with  a  sense  that 
their  moments  alone  might  elucidate  her  uncertainty 
for  her. 

They  had  broken  up  the  informal  group  in  one  of 
the  small  drawing  rooms,  and  Olive  had  followed  Isabel 
down  the  corridors  to  the  farthest  west  end  of  the 
house,  returning  every  now  and  then  the  brief  observa 
tions  Isabel  made  over  her  shoulder. 

"It's  in  the  chapel,  you  know.  It  has  indeed  been 
there  ever  since  we've  existed.  Sometimes  father  talks 
of  moving  it,  and  perhaps  Bobby  and  Minnie  may,  one 
of  these  days — or  one  of  their  Bobbies  and  Minnies! 


ASCENT 

Certainly  they  must  give  up  either  Trant  or  this,  if 
taxation  goes  on  at  this  pace.  But  thank  heaven  for 
the  moment  it's  here  ...  if  you  can  make  it  out!" 

She  opened  a  low  door,  and  Olive  passed  after  her 
into  a  sudden  darkness.  All  she  could  discern,  in  the 
gloom,  was  the  host  lamp,  the  gleam  of  gold  on  the 
wall  behind  it,  and  the  dim  outline  of  the  worn  red 
velvet  chairs  and  stools.  Isabel  touched  an  electric 
switch,  and  before  them,  over  the  altar,  there  leapt 
into  radiance  the  clear  face  of  a  rapturous  St.  Catherine. 
It  was  as  fresh  in  its  purity  as  the  green  of  the  palm 
on  her  shoulder  and  the  deep  blues  and  reds  of  the 
robe  which  fell  to  her  bare  feet.  The  lighting  of  the 
chapel  was  concentrated  on  the  painting,  and  thin  in 
itself — an  evidently  grudged  concession  to  the  darkness 
of  the  surrounding  buildings;  but  Olive's  dramatic 
sense  instantly  seized  on  the  beauty  of  this  seclusion. 
She  thought  of  the  artistocracy  of  an  attitude  which 
could  keep  so  inimitable  a  treasure  here,  for  the  house 
hold  alone,  reducing  it  to  its  contributive  part  in  the 
appurtenances  of  ritual.  Nothing  had  ever  so  illus 
trated  to  her  the  English  integrity  and  the  Catholic 
preoccupation,  or  the  penetration  of  private  faith  into 
every  gesture  of  mind,  habit  and  taste. 

It  seemed  to  her  like  a  reply  to  her  thoughts  that 
Isabel  had  dropped  to  her  knees,  on  one  of  the  velvet 
stools,  with  her  eyes  set  before  her  and  her  hands 
clasped.  She  had  thrown  her  lace  scarf  over  her  head; 
and  in  her  evening  dress,  with  her  arms  and  neck  bare, 
she  added  the  final  note  to  Olive's  sense  of  the  values  of 
the  scene.  For  an  instant  Olive  saw  how  perfectly  she 
herself  could  imitate  what  she  felt  to  be  so  picturesque 
a  gesture;  but  an  unaccustomed  hesitation  held  her 

[316] 


ASCENT 

motionless.  She  felt  suddenly  separate  and  alien,  with 
an  invisible  hand  denning  for  her  a  line  beyond  which, 
for  reasons  she  did  not  stop  to  measure,  she  could 
not  pass. 

Isabel  rose  after  a  moment. 

"Poor  Robert,"  she  suddenly  said,  in  a  low  voice — 
"he  did  so  adore  her!  When  he  was  a  tiny  creature, 
he'd  come  in  here  to  stare  at  her — and  we'd  find  him, 
lost  to  the  world.  I  say  Robert  now;  one  thinks  of 
him  as  if  he  were  dead.  I  wonder  so  much  how  he's 
taking  this  matter  of  Ernestine.  She  died,  you  know, 
four  days  ago,  and  he  was  given  permission  to  be  with 
her  at  the  end.  He  loved  her  so  passionately;  she 
always  had  a  flash  of  St.  Catherine's  spirit,  he  used 
to  say.  Now,  heaven  knows  where  he  is — here,  within 
a  few  miles  of  us,  perhaps,  or  gone  back.  Somehow 
it's  worse  than  death  itself,  this  inexorable  separation." 

She  turned  to  switch  off  the  light;  and  in  the  semi- 
darkness,  and  in  a  sudden  silence,  with  a  motion  which 
was  abrupt  and  full  of  hesitancy  she  laid  her  hand  on 
Olive's  arm.  There  was  no  warmth  in  the  action; 
Olive's  strained  nerves  were  conscious  at  once  of  its 
absence.  She  felt  rather  the  determination  it  betrayed 
of  Isabel's  effort  to  overcome  a  withdrawal  which  had 
the  directness  of  instinct.  Its  definition  was  of  facts 
too  deep  for  her  to  name  them;  but  she  was  conscious 
that  as  they  passed  out  to  the  corridor,  her  flush  had 
swept  from  her  neck  up  to  her  forehead. 

The  others  had  risen,  in  preparation  for  departure, 
when  Isabel  and  Olive  rejoined  them.  Passmore, 
indeed,  had  said  his  good  night  and  was  clearly  linger 
ing  as  they  entered. 

"I  know  what  you  are,  Isabel,  when  you  have  the 


ASCENT 

Raphael  on  your  mind,  and  I  was  almost  hopeless! 
Since  Mrs.  Devon's  not  got  her  husband  here,  perhaps 
she'll  let  me  take  her  in  my  car  to  the  Ormsby's — 
you're  going,  Mrs.  Devon?  Yes?" 

Isabel  answered  him  instantly.  "And  so  am  I.  No, 
mother,  I  think  I  shall,  after  all;  and  you,  Minnie,  of 
course?  Mrs.  Devon's  too  tired?  Then,  my  dear 
child,  we'll  drop  you  in  Hill  street  as  we  go  by,  and 
go  on  with  Francis.  It's  too  bad,  but  you  must  some 
time  see  their  ballroom  lit;  and  they  are  having  Casals 
to  play,  aren't  they?" 

Olive  had  passed  into  the  outer  hall,  with  the  even 
sound  of  Isabel's  voice  behind  her.  Lady  Harringford 
was  delaying,  as  she  parted  from  her  mother-in-law; 
and  for  an  instant  she  found  herself  alone,  in  front 
of  the  gilt  mirrors  and  at  the  foot  of  the  curved  stairs, 
with  Passmore. 

He  signed  to  the  footman  who  held  his  coat  to  wait, 
and  bending  towards  her  he  spoke  in  a  low  tone. 

"I  leave  town  to-morrow,  you  know;  I  cross  for 
the  meeting  at  Brussels.  Saturday  night — in  three 
days — I  shall  be  in  Paris,  at  my  flat  there,  alone  for  the 
week-end.  How  singularly  nice  if  you  ran  over!" 

She  met  in  silence  the  complete  lack  of  concealment 
in  the  declaration  of  his  look,  and  he  pursued: 

"53,  avenue  Montaigne;  you'll  remember?  I'll 
be  there  late  Saturday;  perhaps  you'll  dine  with  me? 
What's  your  hotel  there — the  Crillon?  You'll  find 
my  man  waiting  there  for  you  with  a  message,  any 
time  you  arrive."  His  quick  glance  took  in  the  open 
ing  of  the  door  behind  them,  for  Isabel  and  Lady 
Harringford.  "And  remember,"  his  smile  just  showed, 
"that  at  the  Crillon  my  name's  Parker!" 


ASCENT 

She  was  singularly  silent  as  they  drove  through  the 
streets,  which  had  already  the  stillness  of  the  late 
evening;  and  she  had  only  the  briefest  word  for  Lady 
Harringford  and  Isabel,  at  her  door,  and  the  briefest 
good  night  for  Passmore.  They  must  forgive  her,  she 
said;  she  was  really  tired  out. 

Her  indecision  lay  on  her  thoughts  like  a  heavy  fog. 
All  night  she  saw  nothing  but  this  mist,  in  which  she 
seemed  to  toss  without  direction.  She  did  not  attempt 
to  predict  to  herself  her  determination;  but  her  caustic 
honesty  recognised  that  she  grasped  with  relief  at  the 
fact  that  it  was  only  Wednesday  night,  and  that  hours 
intervened  when  her  logic  of  action  might  clear  itself. 

In  the  morning  she  was  conscious  of  a  sudden  depen 
dence  on  her  normal  routine.  She  interviewed  the 
servants,  saw  Beatrix,  and  set  out  to  keep  an  appoint 
ment  at  her  dressmakers'.  At  times  the  weight  of  her 
preoccupation  gave  her  a  sensation  of  acute  physical 
exhaustion,  and  she  resolutely  tried  to  lose  herself  in 
the  details  of  the  close  scented  fitting  rooms,  the  hurry 
ing  messengers,  with  their  arms  full  of  lace  and  tulle, 
and  the  stimulus  to  her  beauty  of  a  more  expert  treat 
ment  than  it  had  ever  received. 

As  she  walked  down  the  street,  just  at  noon,  some 
submerged  instinct  stirred  in  her,  and  she  turned  in 
between  the  green  railings  of  the  Farm  street  church. 
A  moment  later  she  was  in  the  dim  interior.  Following 
the  faint  thread  of  her  impulse,  she  walked  down  the 
aisle  to  the  farthest  end  and  dropped  on  her  knees 
before  the  altar  of  the  Virgin.  Her  first  reflection  was 
that  it  was  a  stupidity  of  accident  that  the  church  was 
empty  and  that  there  should  be  no  one  to  see  her  as 


ASCENT 

she  knelt,  in  her  soft  dress  and  with  all  her  small 
appurtenances — her  sunshade,  the  gold  bag  on  her 
arm,  the  sables  on  her  shoulders  and  the  flowers  at 
her  waist.  Then  her  thought  rose  with  her  eyes  and 
fastened  on  the  cool  removed  white  figure.  She  was  too 
trained  in  her  realism,  she  recognised,  to  believe  that 
she  could  find  any  decision  in  an  invisible  and  intangible 
world.  Yet  suddenly,  as  she  gazed  in  front  of  her,  the 
tangle  of  her  situation  was  cleared.  If  she  went  to 
Paris  to  meet  Passmore,  she  knew,  with  her  instinctive 
definiteness,  that  her  action  would  lack  some  accent  to 
give  it  salience.  With  a  rapid  combination  of  thoughts, 
she  saw  what  that  accent  ought  to  be.  She  was  conscious 
that,  deep  in  her  shrewd  judgment,  lay  the  presupposi 
tion  that  she  must  extract  from  the  situation  all  she 
could,  in  order  to  make  its  crudity  worth  while.  For 
a  few  moments  more  her  mind  worked  at  avenues  of 
possibility.  Then,  with  a  gesture  of  decision,  she  took 
from  her  belt  the  orchids  Passmore  had  sent  her  and 
laid  them  on  the  ground  before  the  statue,  as  she  began 
to  pray;  as  if,  she  thought,  with  the  habitual  twist  of 
her  cynicism,  she  laid  them  before  Ames.  .  .  . 


XXVI 

THE  House  established  by  the  Carmelites  near 
Reading  resembled,  as  far  as  Olive's  eyes 
could  penetrate  beyond  its  closed  stone  wall, 
one  of  the  larger  houses  of  the  countryside.  Yet  even 
the  glare  of  its  modern  brick  had  a  quality  of  with 
drawal.  Its  silence,  as  the  little  cab  she  had  found  to 
bring  her  the  two  miles  drive  from  the  station  drew 
up  at  the  entrance,  was  at  once  apparent;  and  the  long 
echoes  of  the  bell  set  in  the  high  gate  trembled  through 
the  sunshine  and  rose  to  the  dark  cross,  set  over  the 
gables  and  drawn  in  outline  against  the  morning  sky. 

Olive  turned  and  looked  across  the  road,  beyond  the 
drowsing  horse  whose  driver  she  had  ordered  to  wait 
for  her.  The  fields  quivered  with  light  in  the  noon 
heat.  They  were  already  changing  to  a  deeper  gold, 
and  the  leaves  had  the  darker  green  of  summer.  The 
sweetness  of  the  honeysuckle  on  the  wall  drifted  to  her 
nostrils  like  the  odour  of  the  month,  and  above  the 
elms  which  bordered  the  road  she  watched  a  bird  wheel 
and  drop,  and  rise  into  the  opalescent  light,  scarcely 
conscious  that  her  attention  was  fixed  by  such  details. 
It  was  vaguely  present  to  her  that  ever  since  her 
decision  had  formed  itself  in  her  mind,  twenty-four 
hours  before,  she  had  felt  the  sudden  stimulus  to  her 
senses  and  the  finer  quality  in  her  thought  which  any 
impact  with  Ames  had  always  evoked  in  her.  The 
same  energy  of  response  and  the  same  heightened  sense 
of  vitality  had  animated  her  when,  late  the  afternoon 
before,  she  had  finally  succeeded  in  seeing  the  Arch- 

[321] 


ASCENT 

bishop  of  Stoke.  Her  note,  on  her  card,  had  empha 
sised  the  extreme  urgency  of  a  word  with  him;  and 
face  to  face  with  him,  in  his  study,  with  the  glow  of  his 
robe  outlined  against  the  dark  bookcases  and  his 
closed  expression  confronting  her,  she  had  been  con 
scious  that  some  insistence  carried,  in  her  look  and  her 
voice,  which  brought  a  visible  conviction  to  even  the 
habituated  reticences  of  his  mind.  Her  hands  had 
been  clasped  on  the  arm  of  her  chair  as  she  spoke.  It 
was  of  primary  importance,  she  said,  that  she  obtain 
permission  to  see  Father  Ames  before  he  left  for  his 
return  to  Malaga — immediately;  what  steps  should  she 
take,  and  would  he  lend  her  his  advice  and  support? 
She  made  the  request  only  because  it  was  imperative. 
She  was  not  only  one  of  his  penitents,  but  his  convert 
to  the  church;  and  on  a  matter  concerning  which  only 
he  could  advise  her,  there  hung  the  happiness  of  some 
of  his  dearest  friends. 

The  Archbishop's  face,  as  he  listened,  and  though 
he  was,  in  his  secure  conformity  of  expression,  only  the 
faintest  image  of  his  brother,  had  enough  of  the  family 
quality  to  respond.  Olive  could  see  that  he  hesitated, 
and  with  his  hesitation  she  felt  the  possibility  of  accom 
plishment.  It  was  of  course  extremely  unusual,  he 
repeated,  like  a  formula.  Many  people,  she  would 
understand,  had  wanted  to  see  his  brother,  particularly 
at  the  time  of  the  death  of  Sister  Martha  of  the  Cross; 
his  old  instructor  in  Scholastic  Philosophy  at  Stony- 
hurst,  for  instance,  and  the  Duke  of  Brough.  They 
had  broached  the  subject  to  him,  and  Lady  Isabel  had 
been,  almost  daily,  to  the  palace,  to  learn  at  second 
hand  how  Ames  was  standing  the  shock  of  his  sister's 
death.  But  she  had  never  directly  suggested  seeing 

[322] 


ASCENT 

him.  It  was  plain  enough  to  them,  her  interlocutor  con 
cluded,  that  reminders  of  his  life  in  the  world  were  not 
what,  in  this  situation  or  in  any  conceivable  one,  he 
wanted. 

Olive  had  dropped  her  eyes,  under  the  implication; 
but  a  second  later  all  she  was  conscious  of  was  that  her 
confusion  had  inevitably  added  to  her  beauty.  It  was 
evident  to  her  that  her  only  chance  to  succeed  was  an 
emotional  one,  and  she  had  resolutely  used  it  Her 
only  additional  word  was  that  Father  Ames  himself 
would  be  the  first  to  recognise  the  validity  of  her  claim, 
which  was  a  claim  to  his  Christian  charity,  and  for 
succour  in  the  cruelest  of  situations;  and  she  had  left 
the  house  with  an  affable  note  from  the  Archbishop  to 
the  Superior  in  charge  in  London,  and  another  to  the 
head  of  the  Reading  House,  where  Father  Ames  had 
been  permitted  to  stay  during  the  last  days  of  his 
sister's  life  and  her  funeral. 

The  first  of  these,  when  she  had  presented  herself 
in  the  evening  at  the  door  of  the  chief  house  of  the 
Order  in  London,  she  had  found  to  be  fortunately 
away.  It  left  her  free  to  deal  with  an  inferior,  in  tem 
porary  authority,  but  less  insistent,  so  she  understood 
from  the  air  of  the  monk  to  whom  she  talked,  than  his 
superior  would  have  been;  and  she  was  given  an  addi 
tional  word  of  recommendation  and  instructions  how 
to  reach  the  house  at  Reading.  There  was  noth 
ing  more  to  be  done  until,  in  the  morning,  she 
could  take  the  first  train  which  would  not  get  her 
to  her  destination  too  early.  But  the  rapid  move 
ment  of  her  mind  was  such  that  every  act  seemed  con 
certed  with  its  larger  activity.  She  arrived  at  Hill 
Street,  late  and  tired  out,  and  flung  herself  on  her  sofa 

[323] 


ASCENT 

to  stare  before  her,  all  evening,  at  the  visible  images 
which  her  thoughts  took.  The  hours  passed,  and  still 
she  was  too  absorbed  to  undress.  The  night  had 
brought  to  her  mind  its  resemblance  with  the  night 
before  she  had  gone  to  Father  Ames  to  announce  to 
him  her  readiness  for  conversion,  and  when  she  had 
refused  to  sleep  for  fear  of  curtailing  the  stages  of  her 
initiation.  Once  or  twice  she  dropped  on  her  knees 
and  tried  to  pray.  She  was  keenly  convinced  that 
unless  her  participation  were  complete  she  would  lose 
its  full  import.  But  the  formula  was  always  a  con 
striction  on  her  imagination ;  and  as  she  murmured  the 
words  she  kept  vagrantly  wondering  whether,  a  day 
or  so  hence,  she  would  be  taking  the  lace  dressing 
gown,  which  lay  on  her  bed  underneath  her  extended 
arms,  with  her  to  Paris.  .  .  . 

A  footfall  finally  sounded  on  the  flagging  beyond 
the  gate,  and  she  turned,  with  an  effort  to  brace  her 
self.  A  lay  brother  slowly  undid  the  door  and  con 
fronted  her.  She  was  aware  solely  of  his  surprise, 
as  he  took  her  two  letters  and  compared  the  luxury  of 
her  appearance  with  the  deserted  country  road  and 
the  shabby  cab.  Visitors  were  allowed  in  the  outer 
court,  he  said;  and  she  could  wait  there  while  he  went 
to  the  sub-Prior. 

It  was  at  least  a  step  in  the  advancement  of  her  pur 
pose;  and  after  a  few  moments  in  the  unsheltered 
enclosure,  with  the  sun  blazing  on  the  flowerless  beds 
and  the  narrow  brick  walk  which  led  to  the  house, 
Olive  saw  him  return.  He  made  no  comment,  but  with 
the  taciturnity  of  habit  signed  to  her  to  follow  him. 
They  passed  through  a  door  and  into  a  narrow  hall 
way,  and  entered  what  appeared  to  her  to  be  a  little 

L324] 


ASCENT 

parlour  where,  without  an  additional  word,  he  left  her. 

Olive  looked  about  her,  with  her  instinctive  measure 
ment  of  a  setting.  The  room  had  the  extreme  sim 
plicity  and  cleanliness  of  all  religious  houses.  It  was 
furnished  by  the  plainest  wooden  table,  by  one  or  two 
chairs  and  a  few  religious  books  on  a  deal  shelf,  and 
its  high  window  was  uncurtained.  On  the  table  was  a 
statue  of  the  Virgin,  in  the  brightest  colours,  with  a 
rosary  of  glass  beads  hanging  from  the  clasped  hands. 
Its  presence  seemed  to  accentuate  the  bareness,  and 
she  felt  that  she  could  never  have  imagined  so  harsh 
an  ugliness.  The  door  behind  her  had  opened,  during 
the  uncertain  moment  of  her  effort  to  accustom  herself 
to  the  strangeness  of  such  an  aspect;  and  she  turned, 
with  a  rapid  exclamation,  and  found  herself  face  to 
face  with  Father  Ames. 

His  own  astonishment  was  evidently  sufficient  to 
hold  him  motionless.  It  pierced  the  reticences  of  his 
face  and  lightened  the  concentration  in  his  eyes,  as  if 
the  sight  of  her  were  both  a  memory  and  an  anticipa 
tion  so  differing  from  the  tenor  of  his  accepted  routine 
that  his  effort  at  readjustment  was  a  visible  one. 

He  had  made,  after  his  pause  and  without  moving 
forward,  a  low  murmur  of  recognition  and  greeting. 
But  something  arrested  Olive,  in  her  turn.  Even  the 
clarity  of  purpose  in  her  mind  was  for  a  second  unex 
pectedly  impotent.  His  former  force  held  her  as 
actually  as  a  clasp,  and  under  the  shock  of  its  revision 
she  was  motionless.  The  flash  of  a  second  revealed  in 
his  face  the  power  of  his  accomplished  renunciation, 
and  its  concentration  was  so  strong  that  she  could  feel, 
for  an  instant,  only  her  own  exclusion.  Then,  with  a 
renewed  effort  of  will,  she  tried  to  listen  to  him. 

[325] 


ASCENT 

"My  superior  has  granted  me  the  privilege  of  seeing 
what  I  can  do  for  you,"  he  was  evidently  reiterating. 
"A  day  more,  and  I  should  have  been  gone.  And  in  a 
few  weeks,  you  understand,  it  would  have  been  im 
possible!  And  how  is  my  dear  John?" 

His  smile  had  appeared,  as  he  spoke,  and  he  moved 
forward  to  the  chair  at  one  side  of  the  table  and 
signed  to  her  to  take  the  seat  opposite.  His  voice 
had  its  familiar  inflexion  of  friendliness;  yet  it  was 
when  he  expressed  so  human  a  concern  that  the  sense 
of  his  removal  was  for  the  first  time  complete  to  her. 
She  obeyed  his  gesture  and  sat  down,  with  her  eyes 
still  fixed  on  his  face.  She  could  not  get  beyond  her 
consciousness  of  his  distance.  It  rose  before  her  not 
as  a  sudden  severance  but  as  a  progressive  atrophy  of 
his  personality.  Something  in  his  tone  retraced  the 
stages  of  his  last  months.  It  seemed  to  her  as  if  the 
felicities  and  infelicities  of  living  had  ceased  to  be 
actual  to  him,  had  become  wholly  interior  and  existed 
only  as  phases  of  an  artificial  development,  and  had 
now  finally  died.  It  was  more  than  detachment;  it  was 
a  complete  committal  to  the  impositions  of  his  faith. 

"Oh,  Father,  yes!  I  had  to  insist  on  seeing  you!" 
she  finally  spoke.  "Don't  tell  me  other  souls  have 
needed  you  too;  you  know  I  always  need  things  worse 
than  any  one  else!  But  am  I  really  seeing  you?" 

"Perhaps  not  your  idea  of  me,"  he  had  his  former 
rapidity  of  return;  "but  the  me  who  exists  to-day  and 
who  has  ceased,  you  see,  to  be  of  any  use  to  his  fellows 
outside  of  praying  for  them!" 

"Praying!  ..."  she  ended  her  phrase  with  the 
exclamation.  "And  all  of  you — the  great  you — has 
really  passed  into  prayer?" 

[326] 


ASCENT 

"Very  much  more  poorly  so  than  it  should  have," 
he  retorted.  "When  I  see  the  holiness  of  some  of  the 
brothers,  I  wonder  if  ever  in  my  useless  life  I've 
thought  a  thought  which  wasn't  transitory  and  evanes 
cent." 

"And  you're  dead — wholly  dead?"  Her  intensity 
of  interest  never  wavered. 

Father  Ames  smiled.  "Or  alive — wholly  alive.  All 
experience  is  relative — even  your  pagan  philosophers 
grant  that.  I've  the  sole  one  which  isn't  relative, 
which  is  directly  and  measurably  true.  I  have,  with 
the  help  of  God,  a  constant  communication  in  prayer 
with  my  Maker." 

Olive's  lips  opened  without  a  sound  and  then  set. 
Once  the  first  effect  of  his  presence  was  over,  she  was 
conscious  of  a  rising  impulse  of  revolt.  The  aridity 
of  his  responses  seemed  to  her  like  the  aridity  of  the 
room.  There  was  no  significance  for  her  in  the 
stripped  walls,  any  more  than  there  was  poetry  in  his 
absorption.  All  she  saw  was  a  mechanical  transfer 
ence  of  personality  into  impersonality  and  an  enforced 
negation;  the  differentiations  of  so  susceptive  a  mind 
passing  into  the  artificial  resemblances  and  dissem 
blances  of  a  community. 

Her  look  changed  with  the  return  of  her  determina 
tion. 

"Well,  are  you  so  secure  in  this  achievement  of  a 
paradise  that  you  have  forgotten  those  of  us  who  are 
suffering  and  struggling?  .  .  ."  Her  voice  broke  on 
the  words,  and  she  bent  forward,  across  the  table. 
"Oh,  Father,  I  am  in  trouble,  terrible  trouble;  and  if 
you  won't  advise  me,  won't  save  me,  I'm  lost! " 

"Indeed,  my  child,  I  am  deeply  sorry;"  Father 
[327] 


ASCENT 

Ames's  tone  had  the  quality  of  his  glance.  "I  divined, 
of  course,  that  something  must  threaten  you,  the 
moment  I  heard  you  had  obtained  permission  to  come. 
John— he's  all  right?" 

"Oh,  John!"  She  caught  herself.  "John's  all  right; 
he's  on  his  way  to  America,  and  he's  sure  of  himself, 
sure  of  life — he's  everything  safe.  John!  Can't  you 
help  me  for  myself,"  her  voice  wavered  again,  "and 
not  for  John?" 

Father  Ames's  eyes  searched  hers.  "And  have  you 
been  to  your  confessor?" 

"My  confessor!"  She  spoke  with  the  same  exas 
peration  of  feeling.  "I've  no  director.  I've  not  been 
to  communion  for  months.  My  faith — oh,  let  us  not 
beg  the  question,  Father!  You  know  as  well  as  I 
do  what — and  in  whom — my  faith  has  always 
been.  ..." 

The  immunity  of  his  expression  perfectly  held.  His 
only  response,  for  the  next  second,  was  to  stretch  out 
his  hand  and  draw  from  the  feet  of  the  statue  of  the 
Virgin,  on  the  table  between  them,  the  long  gloves  she 
had  flung  down.  He  folded  them  and  laid  them  at  her 
elbow  before  he  spoke. 

"I  repeat  that  I'm  exceedingly  sorry;  but  it's  clearly 
a  case  in  which  I  have  no  right  to  act.  I  cannot  hear 
your  confession.  I  have  ceased  to  be  a  judge  of  the 
problems  a  confession  involves.  If  you  will  go  to  a 
priest,  on  your  return  to  town  .  .  ." 

Olive's  broken  exclamation  interrupted  him.  Her 
eyes  had  dropped  to  his  hands,  as  he  clasped  them 
on  the  table.  Their  alteration  to  what  seemed  to  her 
heavier  and  insensitive  lines,  compared  with  her  recol 
lection  of  their  fineness,  expressed  for  her  at  the 

[328] 


ASCENT 

moment  the  sterility  of  his  mind.  She  had  a  latent 
sense  that  some  obstacle  of  experience  which  was 
incomprehensible  to  her  interposed  between  them,  and 
she  felt  the  uselessness  of  her  effort  in  the  face  of  it. 

"So  that's  what  you've  done  to  me — what  you're 
willing  to  have  done  to  me!"  her  tone  was  tremulous. 
"I  say  I  became  a  Catholic  because  of  you;  of  course 
I  did!  But  I've  tried — I've  at  least  been  honest. 
And  now  I  come  to  you  in  the  greatest  moment,  and 
you  shirk  the  responsibility.  ..."  His  look  had 
turned  indeterminately  to  her,  for  a  second,  and  she 
seized  on  his  uncertainty;  she  dropped  to  her  knees 
and  stretched  out  her  hands.  "No,  Father,  I  must 
speak  to  you;  oh,  not  as  a  confessor,  as  a  friend — as 
anything  you  please.  Don't  you  see  it's  common  jus 
tice  for  you  to  hear  me  out?  Here  is  what  my  life's 
come  to — this!  You  know  my  will,  that  I'm  all  will; 
and  yet  I'm  powerless  to  save  myself  from  the  cheapest 
and  most  sordid  end.  It's  a  man — of  course  it  was 
bound  to  come  to  that!  I've  always  been  searching 
for  something  to  satisfy  me.  I've  tried  to  live  by  my 
mind,  by  faith,  by  anything  and  everything,  and  I've 
perpetually  sunk.  Now  I'm  here ! " 

She  waited.  Father  Ames's  eyes  had  left  her,  and 
were  set  on  the  open  window  and  the  tree  tops  beyond. 
Even  at  the  moment,  she  could  feel  his  wider  application 
of  her  special  case,  and  that  his  pity  instinctively  passed 
from  her  problem  to  such  problems  as  a  whole. 

"No,  you're  not  so  far  gone  on  your  road  of  holiness 
as  that!  You  will  listen  to  me!  You  will,  if  it's  the 
last  thing  you  do  in  this  outer  world,  help  me.  .  .  . 
Do  you  want  to  see  me  come  to  this?"  She  made  a 
wide  gesture.  "Do  you  want  to  see  me  descend  to  what 

[329] 


ASCENT 

I  know  is  descent — to  reducing  all  my  hope  and  my 
eagerness  to  nothing  but  the  coarseness  of  experience? 
and  with  such  a  man — with  Francis  Passmore?  That's 
what  you've  got  to  save  me  from;  that's  what  you've 
got  to  fight  for  me.  ..." 

Father  Ames's  face  turned  slowly,  as  if  the  term 
recalled  him  from  his  concentration  of  a  moment  before. 
She  watched  the  process  of  the  readjustment  of  his 
attention,  and  saw  that  it  was  followed  by  his  rare 
frown. 

"I  don't  quite  understand  you.  Are  .you  trying  to 
say  to  me  that " 

She  caught  his  words.  "That  I'm  about  to  have 
with  Francis  Passmore  the  most  brutalised  kind  of 
relation?  Yes.  Ah,  Father,  you  can't  yet  so  have 
forgotten  human  sins  and  human  degradations  that 
you  don't  know  they  exist!  You  know  him — and  you 
know  me!  Well,  it  is  brutal,  isn't  it? — that  all  my 
youth  and  my  desire  should  come  to  this?"  She  felt 
her  tears  on  her  cheeks.  "I've  no  illusions;  I've  all 
my  old  clarity;  and  I  know  as  well  as  that  I'm  here, 
that  it's  the  beginning  of  the  end  for  me.  He's  the  first 
step;  but  what  has  been  my  history?  Haven't  I 
always  gone  beyond,  always  pursued  things  farther  and 
farther?  And  if  he  gives  me  an  illusion  of  life,  of 
experience,  on  I'll  go.  The  future  .  .  .  oh,  I  see  it 
as  a  horrible  search,  lower,  meaner,  crueller  each  time. 
It's  that  you  must  save  me  from.  It's  him  you  must 
help  me  to  resist." 

She  had  covered  her  eyes  with  her  hands,  with  her 
head  bent  against  the  table.  As  she  paused,  something 
in  Father  Ames's  silence  made  her  raise  her  face  to 
confront  the  intensity  of  the  look  he  bent  on  her. 

[330] 


ASCENT 

It  instantly  struck  her  that  she  had  never  seen  the 
lines  about  his  mouth  so  tightly  defined  or  his  eyes 
darker.  The  effect  was  so  compelling  that  she  heard 
herself  break  out,  scarcely  knowing  what  words  she 
used.  "Oh,  Father,  I  didn't  mean  ..." 

He  arrested  her  with  an  imperative  gesture.  "Get 
up,  Mrs.  Devon,"  he  said  briefly. 

She  rose  uncertainly,  wiping  with  her  bare  hands 
the  tears  which  still  stood  on  her  cheeks.  "I  don't 
think  you  understand,"  she  began  again;  but  in  an 
instant  he  had  cut  her  short. 

"Understand  ...  if  only  I  didn't!" 

"Then  you  mean "  she  was  again  unable  to  end 

her  sentence. 

"I  mean  that  in  your  confused  wretched  existence,  I 
seem  to  have  been  the  only  person  who's  had  the 
penalty  of  understanding  you." 

She  returned  his  look  silently,  with  the  traces  of  her 
emotion  fading  from  her  face. 

"It  isn't  I  who've  had  the  power  to  judge  you;"  his 
voice,  as  he  proceeded,  was  unconsciously  touched 
with  his  former  accent  of  authority.  "It's  the  laws  of 
which  I've  been  so  poor  a  servant.  Measured  by  any 
faith  or  by  any  honour,  you're  an  outcast,  Mrs.  Devon. 
I  admit  that  you  were  born  with  heavy  penalties  of 
nature,  as  all  misguided  force  must  always  be  a  penalty. 
But  you've  had  chances  which  were  inimitable;  you 
have  had  the  Church,  you  have  been  married  to  the 
best  of  men,  and  you  have  had  the  responsibility  of 
your  child;  and  your  mind  and  your  will  .  .  .  nothing 
but  chances!  Yet  what  has  it  come  to?  I  should 
prefer  to  see  you,"  the  stroke  of  his  words  fell  delib 
erately,  "debase  your  life  with  any  man  rather  than 

[33i] 


ASCENT 

have  you  come  to  me,  in  this  way,  to  save  you  from 
what  you  haven't  the  intention  to  save  yourself!" 

Olive  felt  herself  on  the  farthest  verge  of  her  con 
trol;  there  seemed  to  her  no  denning  line  between  her 
emotion  and  her  anger,  and  she  searched  helplessly 
for  a  phrase  of  reply.  She  was  instinctively  trying  to 
chain  her  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Ames  she  had 
known  had  disappeared,  that  his  prescience  had 
become  bigotry  and  that  she  was  no  longer  dealing 
with  a  human  being  but  an  attitude  of  mind.  "So  this 
is  your  charity!  You  and  the  Church — this  is  what 
you  do  to  a  creature  in  such  misery  as  I  am!" 

Father  Ames's  hand  lifted,  and  with  the  gesture  he 
seemed  to  show  her  the  fruitlessness  of  any  continu 
ance. 

"Why  did  you  want  to  see  me?"  His  accent  was 
shorter  with  each  second.  "I've  no  illusion  in  this,  any 
more  than  you.  To  give  you  an  added  sense  of  adven 
ture — to  bring  the  excitement  of  transgression  into 
your  situation;  wasn't  it  that?  I  was  to  struggle,  to 
dissuade  you,  to  implicate  myself,  to  combat,"  he  had 
the  quickest  cynicism,  "not  only  your  contemplated  act, 
but  Passmore,  for  you.  Your  errand  has  had  a  sur 
prisingly  different  outcome.  You  are  too  intelligent 
not  to  see  its  revelation.  It  is  your  contact  with  spirit 
ual  things  which  has  betrayed  what  you  really  are." 

Olive  was  conscious  that  she  stretched  her  hands  to 
where  her  gloves  lay  on  the  table  and  began  to  draw 
them  on.  She  could  not  trust  her  voice,  in  the  tumult 
of  her  mind;  and  it  was  only  after  a  moment,  and  with 
the  tonic  of  her  rising  sense  of  revulsion,  that  she  tried 
to  speak. 

"Your  position  is  admirably  clear,  and  also  your 
[332] 


Christian  charity.  I  shall  remember  them,  when  you, 
Father,"  her  tone  mounted,  "have  steeped  yourself  in 
a  comfortable  oblivion.  How  easy  your  heaven  is  to 
attain!  I  prefer  the  human  struggles,  I  admit.  I  need 
scarcely  say  that  I'm  sorry  I  disturbed  you  and  the 
perfection  of  your  obedience.  I  don't  dispute  your 
right  to  it.  It's  as  egoistic,  in  its  way,  as  my  right  to 
do  what  I  please  with  Francis  Passmore.  You  and  a 
theory — for  your  life  is  a  theory — I  and  he.  All  such 
emotions  have  their  resemblances!"  Her  fingers  were 
struggling,  through  her  dimmed  vision,  with  her  gloves, 
and  suddenly  she  threw  back  her  head,  with  as  sudden 
a  reality  in  the  motion.  "Oh,  Father,  you  won't 
send  me  away  like  this!  You  will  pity  me  and  help 
me!" 

Father  Ames's  immobility  held,  for  the  long  instant 
of  the  look  they  exchanged.  It  seemed  to  her,  in  their 
silence,  that  it  was  a  moment  which  in  itself  resumed 
the  flow  of  years.  When  he  spoke  she  was  as  conscious 
as  if  he  had  denned  it  that  its  termination  was  com 
plete. 

"You  are  out  of  the  reach  of  any  man's  help,  Mrs. 
Devon;  what  you  need  is  God's.  To  Him  I  can  com 
mend  you,  and  I  do.  That's  all  I  have  to  say  to  you. 
No — !"  She  had  wavered,  with  the  sense  of  impend 
ing  departure,  and  had  supported  herself  for  a  second 
against  the  chair  beside  her.  "I'm  sorry  for  you, 
indeed,  but  I  cannot  allow  our  talk  to  end  on  any  note 
of  appeal  or  of  untruth.  It  is  one  of  the  consolations 
of  my  renouncement  of  the  world  that  I  need  never  see 
such  a  tortured  mind  again."  He  made  a  quick  motion 
towards  the  door.  "Let  us  put  an  end  to  this,  please — 
and  without  anything  further.  There — I  believe  you 

[333] 


ASCENT 

have  forgotten  your  sunshade.    It's  useless  for  us  to 
say  more.  .   .   .  ' 

She  moved  towards  the  door,  with  so  heavy  a  feeling 
of  faintness  that  all  she  could  discern  in  front  of  her 
was  the  wooden  panel  and  the  knob  she  must  turn. 
With  her  hand  on  it,  she  raised  her  head  and  looked 
once  more  over  her  shoulder  at  the  rigidity  of  his  figure 
from  where,  beside  the  table,  he  faced  her.  His  face 
was  unchanging;  and  it  was  dimly  present  to  her  that 
nothing  he  had  said  penetrated  her  like  his  refusal 
to  accord  any  existence  to  the  moment  of  her  departure. 


[334] 


XXVII 

OLIVE  had  reached  Paris  on  the  Saturday  morn 
ing,  travelling  by  the  night  boat. 
The  journey  had  remained  in  her  mind  as  a 
long  series  of  mechanical  incidents.  The  succession  of 
her  thoughts  had  never  seemed  to  her  more  rapid,  more 
determined  or  more  completely  rootless.  Her  power  of 
reflection  and  of  derivation  was  atrophied.  She  had 
gone  from  the  train  to  the  boat  and  from  the  boat  to 
the  French  train,  with  the  sense  of  as  relentless  a  pro 
gression  in  a  series  of  precomposed  events  as  she  had, 
in  London,  made  her  preparations  and  given  her 
instructions  to  the  servants.  Her  determination  to  act 
wholly  in  accordance  with  the  decision  of  her  will 
was  deeper  than  a  desire.  She  found  herself  potentially 
incapable  of  anything  else,  in  a  moral  universe  the 
simplifications  of  which  were  complete. 

The  sense  of  merely  fulfilling  her  part  in  the  various 
details  of  her  final  choice  held  when,  as  she  turned 
away  from  the  bureau  at  her  hotel,  she  was  immediately 
accosted  by  an  indescribable  individual,  in  the  neatest 
black.  His  eyes  were  so  schooled  that  she  could  not 
even  divine  how  absolute  had  been  his  expectation  that 
she  would  come;  and  his  tones,  those  of  an  attentive 
secretary  with  a  careful  regard  for  the  interests  of  his 
employer,  perfectly  bore  out  her  impression. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Madam,  but  Mr.  Parker  will 
be  so  pleased  and  surprised  to  think  you  are  here.  He 
is  expected  from  Brussels  to-night,  at  6:40,  and  he 

[335] 


ASCENT 

thought  you  might  possibly  be  passing  through  Paris. 
I  was  just  attending  to  a  little  business  for  him — yes. 
He  mentioned,  since  I  had  to  call  here,  that  I  might 
enquire  if  you  were  expected,  and  ask  if  you  would 
dine  with  him  at  his  flat  to-night;  and  perhaps,  he 
said,  if  the  heat  continued,  you  would  care  to  motor 
out  to  the  country.  .  .  ." 

"Yes.  I  will  go — I  will  dine  with  him,"  said  Olive; 
the  clarity  of  her  voice  seemed  to  her  like  the  clarity 
of  the  action  of  her  thoughts. 

"Mrs.  Parker  will  probably  already  have  left  for 
the  country,  but  she  is  hoping  to  see  you  there." 

He  paused.  Her  distaste  at  his  adroitness  and  at  the 
expertness  of  his  evident  experience  rose  for  a  second 
to  her  lips;  then  she  heard  that  he  continued. 

"While  I  was  asking,  here,  at  the  desk,  if  you  were 
expected,  a  lady  who  was  asking  for  another  name 
heard  me  mention  yours.  She  enquired  whether  you 
were  to  be  in  Paris  long.  I  told  her  I  believed  not — 
that  I  understood  you  were  coming  to  attend  to  some 
business  in  connection  with  Mr.  Devon's  leaving  for 
America,  and  to  pass  the  week-end  with  friends  out 
of  town.  Her  name,  I  believe,  was  the  Comtesse  de 
Rives." 

Olive's  instinctive  distrust  of  a  warning  and  a 
frankness  which  were  so  much  more  implicative  than 
evasion,  was  submerged  in  an  instant,  as  he  pronounced 
the  name.  There  were  echoes  in  her  resentment,  she 
thought,  longer  than  Passmore's  methods  could  ever 
stir.  She  made  a  decisive  gesture. 

"I  shall  be  very  pleased  to  see  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Parker. 
Please  tell  them  both  so,  when  you  see  them." 

"Thank  you.  And  as  to  dinner,  I  shall  leave  a  word, 
[336] 


ASCENT 

then,  for  Mr.  Parker  at  the  flat;  you  have  the  address, 
I  think?  He  asked  me  to  say  that  he  would  dine  at 
half  past  eight  .  .  ." 

Her  glance  followed  his  inconspicuous  figure  through 
the  crowd  in  the  hall.  She  must  of  necessity  see  him 
so  frequently,  she  supposed,  that  she  would  shortly 
become  familiar  with  the  inflexions  of  his  concealments. 
She  could  even  imagine  how  perfectly  adjusted  her  own 
evasions  of  notice  and  her  own  acceptances  of  insinua 
tion  must  in  time  become  to  his.  For  this  too  she 
would  have— she  knew  her  grandfather  would  have 
said — her  perfect  adaptability. 

Later  in  the  morning  she  went  out.  She  had  brought 
very  little  luggage,  and  she  made  her  way  directly  to 
one  or  two  shops.  Here  her  impression  of  moving  in 
a  totally  new  existence  was  no  less  perfect.  As  she 
turned  over  the  linen  and  the  laces  spread  in  front  of 
her  and  examined  the  tortoise-shell  and  gold  brushes 
and  boxes  and  the  jewel-like  colours  in  the  bottles  of 
scent,  she  seemed  to  see  some  of  the  avenues  by  which 
the  concession  of  her  dignity  was  to  be  made  actual 
— her  sudden  extravagances,  her  complete  irresponsi 
bility,  the  coarsening  of  her  fibre  and  the  failures  of 
her  taste.  Her  imagination  was  already  alive  to  the 
ways  in  which  the  processes  of  her  debasement  would 
be  elaborated.  Not  the  least  of  her  recognitions  was  the 
conviction  that  she  would  show,  in  her  treatment  of 
Passmore,  all  of  her  hard  capacity.  She  could  fancy 
her  gradual  education,  in  lines  in  which  he  would  give 
her  a  thorough  initiation,  and  that  in  the  shortest  time 
the  action  of  her  mind  itself  would  resemble  his,  after 
she  had  ceded  every  point  of  her  separate  integrity. 
She  turned  repeatedly  from  the  obsession  of  this 

[337] 


ASCENT 

impression,  and  busied  herself  again  with  her  pur 
chases;  but  she  could  not  throw  off  the  sensation  that 
the  pressure  of  her  humiliation  was  bending  her 
momentarily  lower. 

As  she  started  to  walk  back  to  her  hotel,  the  famil 
iarity  of  the  streets  held  her  for  a  moment  in  front  of 
the  steps  leading  to  the  Tuileries  Gardens.  The  soft 
June  light,  the  movement  of  the  motors,  the  vitality 
of  the  French  inflexion,  laid,  whether  she  permitted 
it  or  not,  a  touch  on  her  indurated  consciousness.  She 
saw  Rivaudiere's  smile  as  she  saw  the  other  elements 
which  composed  the  scene;  most  of  all  she  was  aware 
of  the  honest  incomprehension  of  the  look  which, 
through  the  pale  afternoon  light  at  Fontainebleau, 
seemed  to  her  to  have  resumed  his  character  even  more 
than  his  charm.  Her  thought  wavered  for  a  second. 
Then,  with  the  rapidity  of  reaction,  it  fastened  on  a 
brief  word  Passmore  had  said  to  her,  in  one  of  their 
enigmatic  exchanges.  "I  don't  want  you  to  have  hopes 
of  me — I  don't  think  I'm  capable  of  feeling,"  she  had 
broken  out,  with  one  of  her  flashes  of  frankness;  and 
it  seemed  to  her  that,  between  Rivaudiere's  sacrifice 
— she  could  call  it  that — of  her  at  Fontainebleau  and 
the  amused  acceptance  with  which  Passmore  had  met 
her  exclamation,  lay  the  stages  of  the  collapse  of  what 
had  made  her  character. 

She  was  looking  across  the  crowded  restaurant, 
during  her  lunch,  with  little  consciousness  of  the  figures 
at  the  various  tables  other  than  as  pieces  in  the  puzzle 
of  her  impressions,  when  her  eyes  idly  fell  on  a  woman, 
alone  like  herself,  seated  against  the  light  of  one  of 
the  large  windows.  A  second  later  she  was  stirred 
to  attention.  The  mention  of  Madame  de  Rives's 

[338] 


ASCENT 

name,  that  morning,  had  brought  her  vividly  into  view; 
but  the  force  her  presence  carried,  as  she  sat  rigidly 
alert  on  her  reflections,  with  her  hands  in  her  lap, 
her  shoulders  inflexible  and  her  look  set,  was  enough 
to  transport  Olive  back  to  the  hour  of  their  talk.  Con 
trasted  with  the  darkness  of  her  own  mind,  such 
perfect  compactness  had  more  than  ever  a  directive 
force.  Olive  tried  for  an  instant  to  fancy  what  such 
an  absorption  of  thought  must  deal  with  and  what  such 
indifferent  eyes  see.  Wherever  one  surprised  Madame 
de  Rives,  and  in  whatever  circumstances,  she  could 
imagine  the  complete  logic  of  her  preoccupation,  the 
steadiness  of  her  criticism  and  the  consistent  dispassion 
of  her  conclusions. 

It  was  the  last  personality  the  impositions  of  which 
accorded  with  Olive's  thoughts;  yet  one  of  her  rarely 
indeterminate  impulses  made  her  pause,  as  she 
approached  the  door  to  go  to  her  room,  at  the  table  in 
the  window. 

Madame  de  Rives's  look  had  at  first  its  former  sug 
gestion  of  being  recalled  from  a  distance;  but  as  she 
met  the  uncertainty  of  Olive's  face,  her  own  definitely 
changed. 

"I  am  glad  to  see  you — I  have  often  thought  of  you," 
she  said  unhesitatingly.  "Yes!  You  are  pleased  to 
find  yourself  in  Paris  again?  It  is  odd,  the  way  you  all 
like  to  return.  .  .  ." 

"I  am  on  my  way  to  spend  Sunday  with  some  friends 
in  the  country."  Olive  found  herself  stating  the  phrase 
with  a  gradually  growing  apprehension  of  the  impor 
tance  to  her  position  of  open  comment;  "I  chanced, 
from  across  the  room,  to  see  you.  And  your  brother?" 

She  had  put  the  question  with  the  same  sense  of 
[339] 


ASCENT 

irresponsibility  which  had  prompted  her  to  stop  beside 
the  table.  Madame  de  Rives's  glance  for  a  moment 
seemed  to  measure  this  accent  in  her  manner,  as  if, 
now  that  she  had  traced  its  relation  to  Rivaudiere  and 
had  disposed  of  its  possibilities,  she  could  permit  her 
self  an  interest  in  it. 

"My  brother  is  in  Tunis  .  .  .  you  did  not  know, 
perhaps?  Yes,  a  party  of  friends,  on  a  yacht.  We 
have  had  a  rather  confused  spring,  owing  to  the  illness 
of  my  mother-in-law,  here  in  this  hotel.  She  completely 
refuses,  in  Paris,  to  be  with  us  or  with  my  sister-in-law 
and  keeps  always  her  rooms  here;  such  a  place,  too,  for 
an  illness!  But  it  appears  that  even  the  habits  of 
the  old  are  changing.  Since  to-day  I  am  in  attendance 
on  her,  I  am  obliged  to  lunch  here,  and  I  came  down 
from  her  salon  to  see  this  curious  scene."  Her  glance 
was  ceaselessly  examining  the  room,  as  she  spoke,  with 
a  frankness  of  astonishment  which  betrayed  the  tone 
of  her  own  habits.  "Extraordinary,  is  it  not?" 

Olive's  curiosity  was  still  fastened  to  her.  At  this 
near  range  she  could  examine  the  tissue  of  her  expres 
sion.  Its  continuity  of  attitude  completely  held;  yet 
Olive  found  herself  suddenly  wondering  what  forms  of 
richness  in  the  field  of  the  human  experiences  so  evi 
dently  involved  a  person  had  extracted,  and  whether 
anyone  could  be  so  consistently  detached  who  had  not 
been  with  equal  consistency  involved.  The  suggestion 
made  her  feel,  in  regard  to  Rivaudiere's  sister,  markedly 
more  intimate  and  inexorably  more  distant.  For  the 
first  time,  in  the  emptiness  of  Madame  de  Rives's  ex 
pression,  she  felt  she  could  trace  what  had  denuded  it. 
She,  it  was  plain,  had  given  herself  to  all  the  possible 
participations.  She  had  evidently  sounded  the  oppo- 

[340] 


ASCENT 

sites  between  generosity  and  refusal,  between  acquire 
ment  and  sacrifice;  and  if  there  had  been  no  alliance 
between  her  morality  and  the  hard  conditions  of  her 
taste,  Olive  could  imagine  nothing  clearer  than  the 
separation  between  the  lapses  she  had  permitted  her 
self  and  the  rigour  of  her  achievements.  In  contrast 
to  so  developed  an  art  of  feeling,  her  own  seemed  only 
the  more  inconsequent  and  fictitious  and  more  clearly 
emphasised  in  its  rootlessness ;  and  under  the  sense 
of  the  test,  she  felt  her  obstinacy  of  determination  rise, 
as  she  made  some  excuse  and  continued  to  the  door. 

About  two  o'clock,  with  her  sense  of  the  rapid 
passage  of  the  hours,  she  was  more  and  more  possessed, 
as  she  sat  at  her  window  and  watched  the  interweaving 
of  the  traffic  below,  by  an  irresistible  restlessness.  Her 
single  requirement  was  for  the  last  spark  of  her  critical 
discrimination  and  her  finer  apprehension  to  expire. 
At  the  moment  even  the  enjoyment  she  foretold  in 
front  of  her, — the  luxury  of  her  indifference,  the 
opportunities  for  commerce  with  important  people,  the 
inevitable  growth  of  her  callousness  and  her  careless 
ness  of  results, — was  held  back  by  this  thinning  image 
of  her  former  self.  Immeasurably  far  off,  it  seemed 
to  her  that  she  still  saw  her  hopes  of  experience  as 
something  high.  She  was  too  completely  without  the 
enthusiasm  of  emotion  not  to  know  that  the  least  part 
of  her  approaching  debasement  would  be  her  actual 
relation  to  Passmore.  It  would  merely  be  the  symbol 
of  her  entire  concession.  Whether  it  affected  her  only 
cursorily,  or  whether  it  struck  from  her  a  spark  of 
some  derivative  good,  she  knew  none  the  less  exactly 
that  she  could  never  fool  herself  as  to  its  soilure. 

[34i] 


ASCENT 

The  resurgence  of  these  thoughts,  however  she 
tried  to  deflect  them,  became  so  little  tolerable  that  she 
decided  to  go  out.  It  was  present  to  her  that  she 
wanted  above  everything  to  be  where  she  ran  no  risk 
of  having  her  fixity  of  decision  touched  by  any  such 
accidental  encounter  as  that  with  Ghislaine  de  Rives; 
and  she  put  on  a  plain  dark  dress  and,  once  in  a  motor- 
cab,  she  called  to  the  driver  to  stop  at  the  Pont  des 
Invalides,  with  the  vague  intention  of  taking  one  of 
the  little  Seine  boats  and  of  perhaps  reaching  St.  Cloud 
for  an  early  cup  of  tea. 

Under  the  brilliant  sunshine  on  the  little  deck  and 
in  the  noisy  cheerfulness  of  the  crowd  of  the  summer 
afternoon,  so  bent  on  the  moment  of  enjoyment,  some 
thing  assuaged  her  inner  strain.  The  gaiety  of  the 
banks,  as  the  boat  glided  along,  the  sudden  darkening 
under  the  bridges  and  the  blaze  of  the  moving  water,  in 
the  tremulous  light,  shut  out  her  reflections.  She  had 
indeed,  she  felt,  passed  beyond  them.  Their  immediacy 
had  ceased;  and  all  she  could  trace  in  her  mind  were 
the  long  reverberations  of  recollection.  For  some 
unfathomable  reason,  she  thought  of  the  village  store 
at  Ware,  of  Norah's  irritating  habit,  before  she  was 
old  enough  to  protest,  of  tying  a  peculiarly  crude  shade 
of  pink  ribbon  at  the  end  of  her  long  braids,  and  of 
the  quick  motion  of  annoyance  with  which  her  grand 
father  used  to  raise  his  head  from  his  Ovid,  when  he 
particularly  disliked  to  be  interrupted.  It  crossed  the 
threshold  of  her  mind,  for  the  first  time,  that  she  must 
accustom  herself  to  live  on  such  disassociated  images. 
Her  thoughts  would  shortly  pass  into  facts  without 
reflection.  Events  were  to  be  merely  events  to  her, 
quantitative  and  valuable  only  for  their  intrinsic  expe- 

[342] 


ASCENT 

diencies.  She  would  cease  to  have  the  morality  of  judg 
ment  and  of  comparison.  There  would  be  no  relations 
between  her  actions;  each  one  of  them  would  minister 
solely  to  the  necessities  of  her  personal  rules,  and  the 
only  rule  left  her  was  that  of  extortion.  .  .  . 

She  had  raised  her  eyes,  with  the  feeling  that  it 
cost  her  a  definite  effort  to  lift  them,  as  the  boat 
slipped  out  to  the  more  open  reaches  of  the  river,  and 
they  lit  fugitively  on  the  bench  across  the  deck.  A 
man  and  a  woman  were  seated  opposite  her,  as  isolated 
as  she,  since  the  boat  was  approaching  Sevres  and  most 
of  the  passengers  had  disembarked.  Olive's  empty 
glance  passed  over  the  couple,  left  them,  and  abruptly 
returned.  Side  by  side  and  turned  to  face  each  other, 
they  appeared  as  absorbed  as  she  in  their  own  pre 
occupations.  They  were  both  dressed  with  an  evi 
dently  composed  simplicity  and  their  attitude  was 
scrupulously  attuned  to  the  inconspicuous.  Yet,  as  her 
eyes  clung  to  them,  Olive  felt  herself  suddenly  in  the 
presence  of  an  emblazoned  fact.  The  reserves  fell  from 
her  face,  in  the  intensity  of  her  curiosity.  As  she  tried 
to  discover  what,  in  their  perfect  attentuation  of  aspect, 
had  so  sharply  impressed  her,  she  tried  equally  to 
pierce  its  meaning.  Their  motionlessness  was  as  much 
part  of  them  as  the  motionlessness  of  the  man's  eyes, 
steadily  fixed  on  the  bright  water,  and  of  the  woman's, 
as  they  imitated  the  direction  of  his.  Her  hands  lay 
inertly  on  her  lap  and  his  were  on  his  knee;  yet  some 
thing  extraordinarly  poignant  struck  Olive  in  the  fact 
that,  near  as  they  were  and  with  the  inexplicable  com 
pression  of  feeling  about  them,  they  did  not  touch  each 
other.  The  woman's  averted  face  might  have  had  the 
variations  of  any  past  written  in  it,  beneath  its  con- 

[343] 


ASCENT 

ventionality;  but  what  was  undeniable  was  that  its 
past  existed.  Between  them  there  stretched,  to  Olive's 
intensified  consciousness,  the  thousand  threads  of  some 
dearly  purchased  exchange,  bought  at  such  an  evident 
cost  and  shaped  with  such  an  evident  concentration  that 
it  seemed  to  have  an  immeasurable  age.  What  a  record 
must  unite  them,  she  wondered,  for  this  hour  of  propin 
quity  to  touch  with  such  a  tranquillity  such  profundities 
of  experience  as  kept  them  motionless  and  silent.  The 
woman's  eyes  lifted,  every  now  and  then,  with  a  quality 
deeper  than  a  smile,  in  their  return  to  his  face.  Her 
muteness  was  evidently  determined  by  recollections  and 
anticipations  beyond  the  necessities  of  phrasing.  The 
man's  very  feeling  had  the  practised  correctness  of  an 
accepted  attitude,  not  of  concealment  so  much  as  of 
a  sustained  repression  in  the  face  of  the  exigencies  of 
experience.  When  his  companion's  fur  boa  slipped 
down,  as  she  turned  her  sunshade  on  her  shoulder,  he 
instantly  bent  forward  to  replace  it.  His  fingers 
lingered  for  the  quickest  instant  on  her  arm;  she  turned 
her  head,  with  the  sharpest  rapidity  of  movement, 
towards  him;  and  it  seemed  to  Olive  as  if  all  their 
history  was  in  the  emotion  of  the  brief  touch. 

She  found  her  hands  had  dropped  to  her  lap,  and 
that  she  was  gazing  before  her,  oblivious  of  the  dis 
closures  of  the  humiliation  in  her  face.  Opposed  to 
what  she  saw  in  front  of  her,  she  saw,  as  vividly  as 
the  figures  opposite,  the  rail  of  the  boat  and  the  sun 
shine,  herself  with  Passmore.  The  realism  of  the  whole 
detail  flared  up  in  her  brain,  like  a  light  flung  into 
the  darkness  of  an  unsuspected  room.  The  complete 
vacuity  of  an  alliance  with  no  possible  gift  of  participa 
tion,  of  its  debasement  and  its  traffic,  came  to  her,  in 

[344] 


ASCENT 

the  comparison.  She  had  a  sudden  insupportable  sense 
of  the  extradition  of  herself  from  all  which,  in  the  evan 
escence  of  each  hour,  she  knew  was  durable.  She 
somehow  understood  that  it  was  in  her  attempt  at 
such  an  enforcement,  with  Passmore  or  with  anyone 
else,  that  her  isolation  from  any  such  sentiment  would 
become  completely  unlivable  and  that  she  would  most 
finally  lose  the  possibility  of  the  passion  and  the  repose 
of  such  a  comprehension. 

The  bell  had  sounded,  for  the  withdrawal  of  the 
gangplank,  when  there  struck  through  the  mists  in 
her  brain  the  call  of  St.  Cloud.  She  hurried  forward, 
just  before  the  gates  closed.  Once  she  was  on  the  quay 
her  thoughts  fell  into  a  complete  precision  of  propor 
tion.  She  asked  a  passer-by  the  way  to  the  nearest 
telegraph  office.  Through  her  walk  along  the  inter 
vening  streets,  and  in  front  of  the  little  wicket,  her 
determination  remained  as  certain.  She  drew  towards 
her  a  telegraph  blank  and  wrote  on  it  Passmore's  name 
and  the  avenue  Montaigne  address,  and  her  irony  had 
never  seemed  to  her  more  expressive  than  when  she 
added  the  word  "useless." 


[3451 


XXVIII 

DEVON  had   received  Olive's   telegram  as  he 
came  out  of  his  father's  room,  on  the  June 
morning  of  his  arrival  and,  with  the  movement 
of  his  hand  suddenly  attenuated,  closed  the  door  behind 
him. 

He  passed  the  slip-shod  servant — who,  whatever  the 
variegations  of  her  personality,  never  altered  in  type 
— as  she  thrust  the  envelope  into  his  hand,  and  went 
out  with  it  into  the  little  front  garden.  A  hot  early 
summer  wind  was  blowing  over  the  dusty  unweeded 
walks  and  the  few  desolate  spring  blossoms  which  sur 
vived.  The  sun  beat  fully  on  the  shabby  house  front 
and  on  the  closed  faded  yellow  blinds.  The  familiar 
sounds  were  everywhere, — the  clang  of  the  trolleys  at 
the  end  of  the  street,  the  cry  of  a  vendor,  and  the  nasal 
voices  of  the  children  at  play  in  the  yards  of  the  nearby 
public  school.  The  crudity  of  ugliness  which  had  sur 
rounded  his  father  had  never  seemed  to  him  more  com 
plete;  yet  even  in  face  of  the  finality  inscribed  on  the 
mute  figure  over  which  he  had  just  drawn  the  sheet, 
he  felt  some  particular  significance  in  the  words  on 
the  yellow  leaf  he  held. 

His  eyes  wandered  aimlessly  beyond  the  sparse  pale 
tree  tops,  along  the  stretch  of  street,  and  out  to  where, 
as  one  divined,  the  edges  of  the  city  merged  gradually 
into  the  open  country  and  the  end  of  the  long  valley 
which  led  to  Ware.  His  uneven  youth  here,  with  his 
sudden  arrivals  and  his  embarrassed  departures,  his 

[349] 


ASCENT 

first  sense  of  Olive  and  the  gradual  establishment  of 
her  permanence  in  his  mind,  all  fell  into  the  respective 
proportions  which  had  been  established  by  the  fact 
which  had  greeted  him  on  his  arrival.  He  felt  that  his 
face  must  look  older,  as  he  raised  it  in  the  sunlight; 
he  was  conscious,  for  the  first  time,  of  an  ultimate 
finality  for  himself,  and  that  he  too  would  inevitably 
face  this  computation,  which  his  father  had  now  made, 
of  the  gain  and  loss  of  experience.  He  asked  himself 
what  in  the  world  he  had  done  with  his  life.  Even 
his  feeling,  the  predominant  note  of  his  imagination 
and  his  fact,  must  finally  be  tempered  into  a  connection 
with  the  eternal  verities.  Yet  his  devotion  had  never 
seemed  to  him  to  be  more  of  the  stuff  of  reality.  He  felt 
it  more  directly  close  to  him  than  Olive  herself.  It  was 
the  penalty,  he  supposed,  of  having  lived  so  persistently 
rather  with  his  vision  of  her  than  with  her  as  a  fact. 
Whatever  his  definition,  he  was  suddenly  sure,  in  the 
moments  of  his  reflection,  that  it  was  the  last  thing,  in 
his  relation  to  living,  which  he  would  have  been  willing 
to  do  without;  and  the  thought  made  his  mind  revert, 
with  the  inexorability  of  contrast,  to  the  shut  dusty 
library,  kept  always  locked  since  there  were  apt 
to  be  priceless  jades  strewn  loosely  on  the  table,  the 
chair  at  the  desk,  with  its  ripped  covering,  the  rusty 
pens  and  the  thick  ink,  and  all  the  touches  which  had 
composed  the  single  scene  of  his  father's  life  of  the 
emotions. 

He  had  already  wondered,  during  the  morning,  if  it 
were  not  the  elder  Devon's  sole  fortunate  escape  from 
the  fantastic  misappropriateness  which  had  pursued 
him  that  he  should  have  died  the  evening  before,  while 
Devon  himself  and  his  mother,  just  off  their  steamer, 

[350] 


ASCENT 

were  already  on  their  way,  by  the  night  train,  to  Wick- 
ford.  The  final  caricature  of  his  wife's  arrival  had,  his 
son  felt,  been  spared  him.  Devon  could  see,  as  his 
mother  stood  by  the  bed,  puzzled  and  incredulous,  with 
the  scene  she  had  planned  so  spoilt  and  all  the  possi 
bilities  of  her  gesture  finally  stripped  from  her,  that 
she  had  for  the  first  time  asked  herself  why  she  had 
conceivably  come.  The  heat  and  the  annoyance  of 
detail  which  beset  her  assumed  a  sudden  element  of 
unfairness.  In  spite  of  her  experiences,  Mrs.  Devon 
still  regarded  love  as  symbolised  by  a  wreathed  maiden 
or  a  lovely  child;  and  a  sentiment  which  could  with 
stand  the  confusion  of  the  house  and  the  lack  of  a 
dressing  table,  in  the  room  to  which  the  embarrassed 
maid  showed  her,  was  unthinkable  to  her.  Devon  saw 
that  sooner  or  later  she  would  reconstruct  the  situation 
on  her  own  terms ;  his  father  would  have  died  bequeath 
ing  her  either  the  special  consecration  of  his  foregive- 
ness  or  his  immortal  persecution.  But  for  the  moment 
she  was  frankly  exasperated,  and  she  submitted  easily 
to  Devon's  suggestion  that  she  go  to  the  hotel  and  back 
to  New  York  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 

For  this  too  his  father  would  once  have  had  his  ready 
comment;  and  something  poignant  struck  Devon  in  the 
fact  that  the  consolation  of  all  these  little  acrimonies 
was  now  gone,  from  that  consecutive  silence.  From  the 
artificiality  and  the  affected  absurdity,  if  one  put  it 
so,  in  which  he  had  passed  years,  he  had  finally  touched 
a  reality.  His  laborious  attempts  to  create  himself  a 
personality  had,  with  a  single  finger  of  fate  laid  on 
them,  exposed  their  futility.  The  severance  of  this 
odd  morose  nature  and  life  was  not  what  seemed  to 
Devon  difficult  of  credence  or  sad;  but  that  severance 

[35i] 


ASCENT 

without  a  shadow  of  foregone  happiness,  with  symbols 
for  beliefs  and  with  irritabilities  for  feeling,  struck  him 
as  a  loss  deeper  than  the  cessation  of  being.  He  saw 
the  flow  of  his  own  existence  as  uncharted  enough, 
vague  and  dissolved,  and  without  that  sense  of  a  pur 
pose  which  had  meant,  in  Ames,  a  morality  and  a  creed. 
He  knew  he  had  drifted  too  easily.  But  at  least  he 
had  measured  himself  against  the  forces  of  human 
laws;  and  the  final  word,  as  he  thought,  to  be  said 
about  his  father  was  that  in  the  close  arid  little  room, 
with  all  his  concentration  on  the  stones  spread  before 
him  he  had  for  most  of  his  life  bent  over  beauty  and 
never  seen  it. 

The  moment  Olive  came  down  the  gangplank,  and 
as  he  caught  sight,  under  her  dark  hat,  of  her  increased 
pallor,  the  flash  of  prescience  with  which  he  had  read 
the  telegram  announcing  her  sudden  return  had 
reverted  to  him. 

She  had  replied  to  all  his  questions  that  the  reason 
she  had  followed  him  so  quickly  was  that  she  felt 
really  ill.  A  heavy  cold  had  settled  on  her  chest,  in 
London,  and  she  coughed  frequently;  and  when  they 
reached  their  hastily  opened  house  and  she  flung  her 
self  on  a  sofa,  he  could  tell  at  once  that  she  had  an 
unusual  lassitude.  He  had  never  seen  silence  so 
visible  as  it  was  in  her  face,  with  her  eyes  set  and 
empty.  But  as  soon  as  she  had  rested  for  an  hour 
she  went  at  once  to  Mrs.  Devon,  and  he  could  feel 
the  effort  she  was  making  to  listen  patiently  to  the 
already  inflated  account  of  his  father's  last  moments 
and  of  his  perversity  in  dying  while  they  were  on  the 
last  stage  of  their  journey  to  him. 

[352] 


ASCENT 

Her  reserves  were  so  invariable  that,  in  the  hurry  of 
the  next  days,  Devon  found  himself  treating  her  with 
an  unquestioning  acceptance.  The  burden  of  his 
father's  estate  promised  to  be  a  heavy  one,  complicated 
as  it  was  by  the  elder  Devon's  elaborate  precautions 
that  his  wife  should  not  interfere  with  the  disposition 
of  his  fortune — except  for  his  generous  legacy  to  John 
— to  the  Wickford  museum.  His  tartness  had  pene 
trated  even  the  legal  document,  Devon  thought;  and  it 
was  a  grim  amusement  to  him  to  see  his  mother's  wide- 
eyed  astonishment  as  to  how  she  was  going  to  build  an 
attitude  of  bereavement  on  so  publicly  stated  a  sever 
ance  on  her  husband's  part.  They  had  decided  to 
remain  in  town  for  the  moment,  with  week  ends  in  the 
country  with  his  mother  where,  with  Beatrix  to  help  her, 
she  was  fast  reacting  to  the  position  of  a  person  cruelly 
maligned.  Their  house  had  just  been  vacated  by  the 
tenants  who  had  occupied  it  during  their  absence 
abroad;  and  Olive  insisted  that  she  must  have  time 
to  put  things  right  and  to  erase  the  marks  of  their 
occupancy,  before  she  could  make  new  plans.  When 
he  came  home,  on  the  already  warm  evenings,  Devon 
was  apt  either  to  find  her  busy,  with  all  her  concentra 
tion  fixed  on  some  small  details,  or  in  an  inert  idle 
ness  the  listlessness  of  which  was  more  and  more 
remarkable  to  him.  The  turn  of  her  head  in  his  direc 
tion  was  without  any  of  the  tonic  energy  she  had 
shown  in  London,  and  there  was  an  inexplicable 
inertia  in  her  interest  and  a  lifeless  quality  in  her 
quickest  motions. 

He  had  delayed  very  late  at  his  library  desk,  one 
evening  in  early  July,  with  the  various  papers  con 
cerning  the  intricacies  of  the  division  of  the  jades 

[353] 


ASCENT 

heaped  about  him.  Olive  had  left  him  about  ten 
o'clock,  with  her  habitual  plea  that  she  was  tired  and 
wanted  the  quiet  of  her  room;  but  just  after  midnight 
struck  he  heard  a  slight  stir  at  the  door,  and  when  he 
opened  it  he  discovered  her  standing  motionlessly,  in 
the  hall,  as  if  she  could  not  determine  the  direction  of 
her  next  action. 

In  her  thin  evening  dress,  as  she  leaned  against  the 
dark  paneling,  and  with  her  loosened  hair  against  the 
whiteness  of  her  neck,  she  suddenly  struck  him  as 
dangerously  thin.  He  rose  abruptly,  with  the  softness 
which  his  manner  assumed  with  her  when  it  was 
unguarded. 

"My  dear  child,  you're  ill!  What's  wrong?  Can  I 
do  nothing  for  you?" 

She  shook  her  head.    "No — I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

Her  reply  was  as  brief  as  ever,  but  her  tone,  he  heard, 
was  changed  in  quality.  In  response  to  his  murmur 
that  his  job  was  over  for  the  night — that  he  wished 
she'd  come  in  and  interrupt  him — she  crossed  the 
threshold.  Her  step,  as  she  came  forward,  wavered 
and  paused;  and  in  its  uncertainty  and  its  lack  of  her 
usual  driving  quality,  it  moved  him  inexplicably. 

She  rested  her  hands  on  his  desk  and,  still  standing, 
she  gave  him  a  long  look.  It  was  the  first,  he  instantly 
felt,  since  her  return.  He  began  to  speak  and  then, 
as  her  glance  deepened,  he  was  abruptly  silent.  His 
scale  of  the  measurement  of  what  her  face  exposed 
grew  with  the  instants,  as  if  the  consecutive  stages  of 
the  two  years  since  their  marriage  and  of  his  knowl 
edge  of  her,  back  to  her  childhood,  were  being  displayed 
before  him. 

On  Olive's  side,  their  confrontation  had  the  effect 
[354] 


ASCENT 

of  a  sudden  relaxation,  after  the  steady  pressure  of 
control  she  had  maintained.  The  past  weeks  had 
marked  her  with  signs  deep  enough,  she  felt,  to  be 
beyond  any  further  concealment.  She  could  not  say 
that  her  inexorability  of  vision  had  declined,  in  any 
degree,  since  the  moment  when  her  sense  of  values 
had  had  the  shock  of  an  acceptance  of  new  proportions. 
She  knew  that  she  had  gone  back  to  London  and  made 
her  plans  for  departure,  with  so  complete  a  sense  of 
immunity  that  she  had  not  feared  any  accident  which, 
in  the  chance  of  the  streets  or  of  drawing  rooms,  might 
bring  her  face  to  face  with  Passmore.  The  imputation 
of  the  fact  that  he  made  no  sign  to  her  had  struck  her 
forcibly.  It  was  the  last  penalty  of  her  sacrifice  of  her 
self-respect,  she  had  told  herself,  that  he  should  accept 
her  denial  as  easily  as  he  had  accepted  her  acqui 
escence;  and  she  had  received  the  implication  of  his 
indifference  as  steadily  as  she  had  received  her  recog 
nition  of  its  justice. 

She  had  seen  very  few  people,  but  she  had  wished 
to  spare  herself  nothing  which  could  illustrate,  in  her 
own  view,  her  independence  of  what  she  had  done. 
One  afternoon,  with  a  determined  disregard  of  her 
hesitation,  she  had  called  at  Brough  House,  and  had 
found  Isabel  and  the  Duchess  with  people  on  the 
terrace.  There  was  too  little  privacy  for  her  to  have 
any  special  word  with  Isabel;  but  as  she  lingered  in 
front  of  her  for  a  moment,  by  the  tea  table,  and  in 
earshot  of  everyone  else,  she  had  lowered  her 
voice  to  say:  "Has  Father  Ames  gone  back,  do  you 
think?" 

Isabel  had  instantly  lifted  to  her  a  look  of  surprise, 
across  the  high  tea  urns  and  the  crowded  cups.  "Yes; 

[355] 


ASCENT 

I  believe  he  went  some  days  ago.  Of  course  I'm  not 
certain.  .  .  ." 

Olive  had  drawn  for  an  instant  a  complicated  de 
sign,  with  her  long  gloved  finger,  on  the  tea  cloth;  it 
had  been  the  sole  moment  when  she  felt  her  self- 
command  in  question  because  of  her  foregone  knowl 
edge  of  Isabel's  next  response. 

"Shall  you  ever,  do  you  think,  see  him?" 

"Ah,  no!  He  takes  his  final  vows,  you  see,  next 
month."  Her  look  hesitated.  "But,  my  dear  child, 
if  any  message  is  ever  possible  ..." 

Olive  caught  up  her  uncertainty.  "If,  in  the 
chances  of  things,  any  of  you  should  ever  get  a  word 
to  him — through  his  brother,  or  in  any  way — I  should 
like  him  to  know  that  I  have  left  England,  that  I  have 
gone  away,  that  I  have  left  ..."  Her  manner  had 
been  as  authoritative  as  usual,  but  her  words  had  con 
fused  themselves,  helplessly. 

Isabel's  look  had  never  shown  her  as  definite  a 
liking.  "Whether  any  actual  message  can  reach  him 
or  not,  don't  all  one's  messages  reach  him?"  She 
motioned  aside  a  footman,  who  waited  with  an  empty 
cup.  "It  is  so  impossible  for  us  to  talk,  here!  Can't 
we  see  each  other  again,  before  you  go?" 

Olive  shook  her  head.  "Thank  you — but  I  cannot 
manage  to  be  free;  and  I  cannot  talk.  It's  useless." 
She  had  held  out  her  hand,  without  further  comment. 
The  failure  and  f ruitlessness  of  their  few  words  seemed 
to  her  symbolic;  and  the  suffering  in  her  mind  had  been 
submerged  again,  with  her  dominance  firmly  upon  it, 
to  prevent  any  possibility  of  a  resurgence  which,  she 
knew,  must  incapacitate  her.  .  .  . 

She  seemed  to  give  to  Devon,  in  the  uninterrupted 
[356] 


ASCENT 

message  of  her  eyes,  the  history  of  these  fluctuations 
before  she  spoke. 

"I've  been  wanting  to  talk  to  you,  and  I've  tried, 
from  day  to  day,  to  do  it;  and  yet — "  her  amusement 
showed  dimly — "I  have  nothing  but  the  old  thing  to 
say!" 

As  her  smile  lit  her  face,  it  seemed  to  Devon  like  a 
rapid  incandescence.  The  frank  avowal,  in  her  look, 
of  what  she  had  traversed,  was  so  unlike  her  that  his 
words  halted  for  a  moment,  and  she  pursued:  "When 
you  got  my  telegram,  saying  I  had  decided  I  must 
rejoin  you  at  once,  had  you  no  inkling  that  I'd  been  to 
the  end  of  the  world" — her  shoulders  rose  under  their 
thin  wrappings — "and  back  again?" 

Some  instinct  informed  Devon  that  their  exchange 
was  too  serious  for  him  to  sacrifice  the  crudity  of  the 
facts  of  her  case. 

"I  very  distinctly  had  an  inkling.  I've  not  the  habit, 
you  know,  of  having  you  rejoin  me;  and  I  knew  my 
father's  condition  could  have  meant  very  little  to  you. 
So  my  inkling  remained  unexplained.  You're  not  a 
person  about  whom  one  has  much  sensitiveness  of 
imagination;"  he  tried  in  his  turn  to  smile;  "you're  all 
fact." 

She  was  persistently  silent  for  a  second,  with  her 
eyes  set  on  his  desk.  The  strain  in  her  face,  as  the 
moments  passed,  was  so  increased  that  it  seemed  more 
and  more  to  trace  for  him  the  disintegration  which  had 
taken  place  in  her  thoughts.  She  raised  her  look  again, 
abruptly,  to  say:  "I  can't  live  any  more  like  this. 
I'm  too  miserable;  and  you've  got  to  help  me."  She 
made  one  of  her  sudden  gestures.  "I  can't  feel  so  con 
demned,  so  separate  from  life,  so  devoid  of  feeling.  It's 

[357] 


ASCENT 

useless — I  can't  bear  it;  and  only  you,  John,  can  teach 
me.  That,  in  these  last  weeks,  I've  understood." 

Devon  watched  her  fixedly.  "Why?  What  has 
made  you  understand  it?" 

"Oh,  my  failures,  my  bitternesses,  my  needs.  ..." 

He  caught  her  up.  "Your  needs,  but  not  your  feel 
ings." 

Olive's  head  lowered  again.  "I  know;  you're  right. 
But  who  is  to  teach  me  to  feel,  if  it  isn't  you?" 

She  was  motionless  for  an  instant  more,  and  then  she 
sank  into  the  chair  beside  her,  with  her  arms  stretched 
on  the  desk  and  her  head  on  them,  in  a  stream  of  tears. 
Devon's  arm  was  instantly  around  her,  and  he  felt  all 
the  force  with  which  her  head  pressed  against  his 
shoulder.  She  cried  for  some  moments,  with  the  hope 
lessness  of  a  child;  and  when  he  had  calmed  her,  all 
she  would  reiterate  was  that  he  must  help  her.  It  was 
not  until  her  sobs  had  subsided  that  she  sat  sharply 
upright,  with  the  tears  still  on  her  face  and  neck  and 
her  hands  still  grasping  his. 

"I  want  to  tell  you — I  want  you  to  know,"  she  began, 
"what  happened  to  me  in  London.  ..." 

His  sudden  motion  had  a  definitiveness  which  made 
hers,  by  contrast,  only  a  nervous  gesture.  "As  to  that, 
no.  You'll  tell  me  nothing." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"That  I'll  consent  to  hear  nothing,  that  I  want  to 
hear  nothing.  The  details  by  which  you've  come  to 
feel  as  you  feel  aren't  the  point.  I  don't  want  them. 
They  don't  belong  to  me;  and  this,"  he  rapidly  touched 
her  head,  "does." 

"But  you  ought  to  know  ..."  she  broke  in,  per 
sistently. 

[358] 


ASCENT 

"Ah,  my  dear,  I  won't  know!  I've  believed  for 
years  that  you'd  ultimately  need  me;  and  perhaps, 
now  ..."  It  was  his  turn  to  let  his  sentence  trail  off, 
with  his  habitually  quizzical  look. 

"But  my  need — it's  as  wide  as  the  world! "  She  pur 
sued  with  her  insistent  accent.  "I've  got  to  ask  of  you 
everything,  from  the  simplest  things  up.  It  isn't  only 
that  I  know  nothing;  I  am  nothing.  The  basis  of  all 
my  living  seems  to  have  been  fatally  wrong.  I've  yet 
to  learn  every  sort  of  thing  most  people  know  innately. 
I've  got  to  learn  a  consciousness  of  life.  .  .  .  It's  only 
through  human  feeling  I  shall  do  it.  Well,  then — " 
her  eyes  dropped  again  to  him — "you  must  help  me 
to  that." 

He  met  her  gaze  without  comment.  Nothing  in 
what  she  said  seemed  to  him  more  touching  than  the 
fact  that  she  said  it;  then  his  mind  gave  a  sharp 
turn. 

"So  that's  what  all  I  liked  to  call  my  dedication  has 
come  to! "  He  spoke  without  any  trace  of  acerbity  and 
merely  with  his  habitual  brevity.  "My  quest,  my 
consecration  to  you — it's  finally  won  from  you  your 
permission  to  help  you  on  the  road  to  your  famous 
curiosity!" 

She  again  pressed  her  cheek  against  him.  "I  believe 
I  have  loved  you  always,  and  not  known  it!" 

Devon's  face  showed,  for  the  shortest  second,  the 
signs  of  a  quicker  emotion  than  hers.  "No,  ytm 
haven't;  and  more,  my  dear,  you  don't!"  He  laid  his 
hands  once  more  on  her  shoulders,  with  an  abrupt 
energy.  "But  all  you  can  give  me  I  want — all,  all!" 

She  drew  back  to  look  at  him.  He  could  see  the 
gathering  of  an  unfamiliar  expression  in  her  eyes. 

[359] 


ASCENT 

"John,  you  are  an  extraordinary  person!"   she  ex 
claimed. 

He  shook  his  head,  with  his  usual  dry  smile.  "It 
would  be  easier  to  let  you  suppose  it,  but  I'm  not! 
For  years,  you  know,  I've  refused  to  accept  you  on  any 
terms  but  my  own.  To  the  end — and  even  against 
you  yourself — I'll  hold  out  for  them!" 


[36o] 


XXIX 

THE  weeks  ran  into  the  summer  months  and 
through  them;  and  still  it  seemed  to  Devon  as 
if  Olive's  fingers,  when  she  touched  him,  held 
him  with  an  increased  force  of  the  appeal  she  had  made 
to  him,  on  the  July  evening.  The  summer  was  already 
so  far  past  and  her  debility,  the  moment  she  made 
any  effort,  so  marked,  that  they  had  concluded  to  let 
their  plans  drift  and,  Beatrix  being  safely  in  her  grand 
mother's  hands,  to  save  Olive  the  effort  of  any  decis 
ion.  Through  July  Devon  frequently  motored  her  to 
his  mother's  nearby  country  house,  on  a  barren  stretch 
of  Long  Island  sand,  built  in  what  Mrs.  Devon  con 
ceived  to  be  a  perfect  imitation  of  a  Norman  manoir. 
There,  in  the  cool  breeze,  some  of  Olive's  colour 
wavered  at  times  across  her  face.  But  it  was  apparent 
that  she  was  less  and  less  well,  if  only  in  the  intensity 
of  her  voice  and  the  sharpness  of  her  eyes;  and  by 
September  Devon  had  opened  the  town  house,  in  spite 
of  the  season,  and  was  trying,  under  the  instructions 
of  his  doctor,  to  yield  to  any  of  her  desires  which 
would  give  her  no  effort  and  arrest  her  persistent 
depletion. 

One  of  the  ideas  to  which  she  most  closely  clung  was 
that  she  could  not  leave  him.  Even  a  day  or  so  away 
made  her  restless  and  febrile.  Devon  was  too  engaged 
with  his  affairs,  after  his  long  absence  and  with  the 
executorship  of  his  father's  estate,  to  consider  holidays 
from  his  own  point  of  view;  but  when  he  offered,  with 
his  smile,  to  toss  the  jades  to  the  dogs  if  she  would 


ASCENT 

come  with  him  to  the  mountains,  she  had  only  pro 
tested.  What  she  wanted  to  do,  he  could  see,  on  the 
days  she  felt  stronger,  was  to  move  ceaselessly  about 
the  house,  making  the  most  elaborate  arrangements  for 
his  comfort.  So  new  a  consideration  struck  his  grim 
sense  of  contrast,  and  he  scarcely  knew  whether  it  were 
pathetic  or  exasperating  to  see  her  bending  over  his 
piles  of  linen  and  arranging  the  division  of  the  clothes 
in  his  wardrobe. 

She  was  increasingly  conscious  of  a  sensation  of  ex 
haustion,  more  than  an  actual  pain,  in  her  back,  and 
more  and  more  he  saw  her  erect  shoulders  tend  to  lapse 
into  listlessness.  By  the  early  autumn  most  of  her  day 
seemed  to  him  to  reduce  itself  to  the  hours  she  spent 
on  her  sofa.  Devon  called  in  a  specialist,  and  felt 
a  nascent  sense  of  real  alarm;  but  the  vague  talk  of 
her  general  fatigue  and  of  her  rapid  powers  of  reac 
tion  was  so  born  out  by  his  knowledge  of  her  that  he 
put  aside  the  instinct  to  phrase,  even  to  himself,  any 
definite  question. 

If  the  terms  of  her  activity  were  restricted,  he  had 
never  seen  her  mind  more  positive  in  its  force.  For 
the  first  weeks  after  their  talk,  she  was  as  rapid  and 
as  clear  as  he  had  ever  seen  her  rapid  and  clear.  Her 
plasticity  of  intelligence,  even  in  her  ill  health,  had 
never  seemed  to  him  more  responsive  or  more  sure. 
He  never  came  to  her  room  without  finding  her  deep 
in  a  book  on  architecture;  she  questioned  him  per 
petually  about  matters  of  his  knowledge,  about  his 
tastes,  his  theories  of  design,  where  he  had  picked 
things  up  and  why.  She  studied  even  the  jades,  he 
saw,  with  the  assertion  that  she  must  help  him  to 
disentangle  the  intricacies  of  the  elder  Devon's  reasons 

[362] 


ASCENT 

for  the  division  of  his  bequests.  "I've  all  the  years 
to  make  up  for,  you  see,"  she  said  to  him,  when  he 
commented  on  the  fatigue  her  effort  must  cost  her. 
"I've  all  of  you  to  learn." 

Devon  touched  her  hands  absently  for  a  second 
before  he  brought  out:  "Why  don't  you  just  rest,  and 
learn  Beatrix?" 

"Sooner  or  later  I  must  learn  her,  of  course.  But 
not  because  she's  herself  or  even  because  she's  partly 
me,  but  because  she's  you!" 

"No — because  it's  part  of  your  idea! "  He  separated 
slowly,  one  by  one,  her  long  fingers,  as  her  hand  lay 
on  her  coverlet.  "You've  a  terrible  realism!" 

Her  fingers  moved  spasmodically  to  catch  his.  "It 
is  marvellous  the  way  you  understand  me!" 

Devon  laughed.  "Oh,  my  dear,  I've  understood  you 
• — yes;  even  better  than  poor  Ames  ever  understood 
you!  He  judged  you,  you  see,  by  a  code;  I've  judged 
you  by  something  larger  than  a  code.  Everyone  sees 
you're  wonderful,  and  Ames  was  wise  enough  to  see 
you  were  wonderful  without  any  real  wonder  in  you. 
It's  taken  a  vague  person  like  me  to  understand  that 
the  wonder  was  coming  to  you."  His  face  changed, 
with  one  of  its  rare  variations,  and  his  hands  returned 
her  grasp.  "I  really  believe  it  is!" 

Her  look  clung  to  his,  with  a  sudden  uncertainty. 
"Oh,  is  it?  Is  it?"  She  spoke  eagerly,  and  her  voice 
immediately  changed,  as  if  she  suppressed  her  own 
doubt.  "I'm  so  little  accustomed  to  faith,  you  know, 
that  you  mustn't  mind  if  sometimes  I  sound  ridicu 
lous,"  she  ended. 

His  first  definite  association  of  himself  with  the 

[363] 


ASCENT 

possibilities  of  happiness  had  struck  Devon,  one  Octo 
ber  afternoon,  when  the  press  of  his  reflections  had  so 
absorbed  him  that  he  had  left  his  car,  on  his  way  up 
Fifth  avenue,  and  had  set  out  to  walk  the  remaining 
distance  to  his  house.  Olive's  steadily  increasing  depen 
dence  on  him  was  more  and  more  persistently  in  his 
thoughts.  He  had  been  for  some  reason  conscious  all 
day  of  the  suspense  which  only  the  special  moments  of 
feeling  bring.  In  the  past  weeks  his  sensation  of 
safety  with  her — of  the  subsidence  of  her  criticism  and 
of  the  softening  of  the  sharp  angles  of  her  personality 
— had  been  definite  enough  to  let  his  vigilance  relax 
and  to  leave  him  free  with  her.  For  the  first  time 
in  their  relation  he  had  begun  to  accept  her  uncon 
ditionally  and  with  a  sense  of  security  in  the  quality 
of  her  reactions.  He  knew  that  his  tendency  of  mind 
was  too  largely  towards  the  negative  view  and  towards 
too  close  a  conservatism  of  thought;  but  lately — and 
particularly  during  the  day — she  had  seemed  to  him, 
as  he  thought  of  her,  to  have  softened  to  the  point  of  a 
generosity  which  freed  all  the  constriction  of  his 
feeling. 

This  sense  of  an  assurance  of  his  possession  of  her 
response  had  increased  in  him  unremittingly.  He  had 
fancied  that  he  could  watch  her  rapid  curiosity  discover 
and  trace  the  ways  to  his  character,  with  the  consistent 
energy  he  had  always  seen  it  show.  His  judgment  of 
her  was  still  invariable  and  separate  enough  to  recog 
nise  what,  even  in  her  sublimation  of  him,  she  would 
always  see;  that  his  tolerance  was  still,  in  her  view, 
weakness,  and  that  she  had  never  yet  gauged  the  deli 
cate  difference  between  his  constant  construction  and 
her  own  dangerous  fluidity.  With  her  inerrant  instinct 

[364] 


ASCENT 

for  acquisition,  he  had  watched  her  create  for  him  such 
a  personality  as  her  invariable  play  of  restlessness  let 
her  create;  not  with  imagination,  perhaps,  but  with 
the  first  signs  of  a  sincerity  of  devotion  he  had  ever 
seen  in  her  and  the  existence  of  which  was  enough 
to  leave  him  unquestioning. 

He  had  reached  the  upper  and  clearer  stretches  of 
Fifth  avenue,  and  he  paused  for  a  moment,  looking 
over  the  wall  which  edged  the  park,  where  he  could 
trace,  across  the  thinning  trees,  the  gathering  colour 
of  the  last  light  and  the  first  flash  of  the  evening  illumi 
nation  in  the  sky.  He  found  his  thoughts  clinging  to 
the  astonishing  fact  of  what  made  her  power  with  him. 
He  had  often  tried  to  solve  why  it  was  that  whatever 
she  did  or  failed  to  do,  she  had  the  capacity  to  give 
him  the  stirring  sense  of  upward  movement,  and  to 
reduce  to  unimportance  any  penalties  in  the  importance 
of  a  second  of  her  clear  feeling.  He  had  more  than 
ever  recently  asked  himself,  as  he  watched  her  try  to 
temper  the  intolerance  of  her  judgments  and  change  her 
conclusions  to  a  different  note,  whether  her  poverty  had 
ever  been  so  apparent  as  now  when,  in  this  revulsion 
of  her  experience,  she  tried  to  learn  the  meaning  of 
contribution.  The  falsity  of  all  her  processes  of  manu 
facture  had  never  seemed  to  him  so  absolute  as  since  he 
had  seen  them  displayed  with  himself  as  their  goal. 
Her  rapidity  of  assimilation  was  as  innate,  in  regard 
to  the  terms  of  sentiment,  as  it  had  been  in  all  her 
experiments.  It  had  been  when  she  assured  him,  with 
all  the  elaboration  her  capacity  could  put  into  the 
assertion,  that  here,  finally,  was  her  greatest  adventure, 
that  he  had  been  most  fully  sure  of  the  inescapable 
condemnation  of  her  temperament — that  she  must 

[365] 


ASCENT 

seize,  and  could  never  learn.  Yet  there,  he  told  him 
self,  with  his  habitually  caustic  conclusion,  was  where 
he  came  in.  It  had  needed,  at  times,  all  his  self- 
command  to  withstand  the  force  of  her  very  gener 
osity.  But  no  certainty  had  ever  seemed  to  him  as 
immutable  as  the  fact  that  it  had  been  worth  it,  and 
that  to  see  her  try  to  dedicate  herself  and  to  respond 
had  quickened  the  pulse  of  his  existence  so  that  every 
thing  else  below  this  point  had  lost  its  savour. 

He  opened  her  sitting  room  door,  half  an  hour  later, 
to  find  the  room  dark.  By  the  light  of  the  wood  fire, 
as  it  flared  up,  he  made  out  that  the  lace  covering  on 
her  sofa  was  tossed  to  one  side  and  the  sofa  empty;  and 
after  the  second  which  it  took  his  eyes  to  suit  them 
selves  to  the  obscurity,  he  saw  that  she  was  standing, 
drawn  to  a  rigid  fixity,  against  one  of  the  dark  velvet 
curtains. 

Devon  was  in  an  instant  conscious  of  a  change  in 
the  atmosphere;  and  a  shock  of  incertitude  touched  his 
mind.  It  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  both  of  them 
had  insensibly  come,  in  their  absorption — she  in  her 
own  processes  and  he  in  watching  her — to  measure  less 
steadily  the  progressive  signs  of  her  weakness;  and  he 
remembered  that  the  specialist  he  had  last  consulted 
might  again  have  come  to  see  her. 

"I  thought  you  weren't  to  leave  your  sofa  just  yet! 
I  thought  you  weren't  to  stand!"  he  protested. 

"I  know;  that's  it  ...  I  am  to  lie  flat;"  her  words 
might  have  made  any  meaning  conceivable,  without 
reaching  his  brain.  All  he  could  find  the  force  to  com 
prehend  was  the  quality  of  a  stroke  in  her  tone. 

"Owen  has  been  here?"  he  tried  to  speak  naturally. 

"Yes." 

[366] 


ASCENT 

Devon  stepped  towards  her,  with  a  deeper  sense  of 
vagueness.  "And  he's  told  you ?" 

"It's  I,"  she  had  all  her  precision,  "who  have  told 
him.  Oh,  they  both  came,  he  and  Dr.  Freeborn.  They 
nodded  their  heads  a  great  deal — they  said  they'd  at 
last  got  results  from  the  cultures  they've  been  taking. 
Owen  is  coming  back,  at  seven,  to  see  you;  he  tried 
to  telephone  you,  just  before  they  left,  but  you'd  gone 
from  your  office." 

She  was  still  motionlessly  white  against  the  curtain, 
with  her  attenuated  strength  stretched,  as  he  saw,  to 
its  furthest  verge. 

"What  they  weren't  prepared  for  was  what  I  told 
them.  It  came  across  my  mind  .  .  .  one  of  those 
things  to  which  I've  been  so  accustomed  that  I'd  long 
since  forgotten  it  ...  that  my  mother,  when  she  died, 
was  found  to  have  tuberculosis  of  the  spine." 

The  dusk  of  the  room  seemed  to  Devon,  for  an 
instant,  to  blaze  into  clarity;  he  kept  an  instinctive 
hold  on  his  control,  but  words  were  past  his  capacity. 

"Uncle  Joseph  Trail  died  of  it,"  her  phrases  fell 
without  hesitation;  "and  his  mother — my  grandmother 
—before  him.  There  was  another  sister,  too,  who 
showed  symptoms;  and  Abby,  I  seem  to  remember, 
had  a  little  brother  who.  .  .  ."  She  lifted  her  hand 
helplessly  to  her  forehead.  "I  can't  think  it  out. 
They've  all  always  seemed  to  me  so  foolish  and  so 
contemptible.  .  .  ." 

She  waited  for  another  moment.  "My  heritage  from 
the  Trails — the  one  thing  they've  ever  given  me  .  .  ." 
and  Devon  heard  her  murmur,  as  she  swayed  and  sank 
to  the  ground,  "how  grandfather  would  have  laughed!" 

[367] 


XXX 

PHILIP  was  rocking  cautiously,  in  his  low  chair 
beside  the  grate,  with  Beatrix  curled  closely  on 
his  knees.  Beneath  his  breath  he  murmured,  in 
a  tone  carefully  muffled,  the  scraps  of  nursery  rhymes 
which  came  vagrantly  into  his  mind.  He  had  forgotten 
so  many  of  the  words  that  every  now  and  then  his  near 
sighted  eyes  peered  down  uncertainly  at  her  head,  bent 
in  the  curve  of  his  arm,  to  see  how  many  of  his  lapses 
reached  her.  His  strangest  surprise,  in  the  serried  rank 
of  surprises  of  the  last  twenty-four  hours,  was  Beatrix. 
His  knowledge  of  her,  until  now,  had  been  limited  to 
occasional  moments  with  her,  when  she  was  dressed  in 
her  embroidered  frocks  and  held  by  her  nurse's  hand. 
The  miracle  of  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  came  to  him 
naturally  and  without  criticism.  It  struck  him  as  so 
astonishing  that  it  was  disquieting;  and  again  and  again, 
during  their  long  day  together,  with  the  house  hushed 
and  the  sense  that  there  were  gathered,  outside  the 
closed  pine  door,  so  many  forces  and  facts  which  he 
could  not  comprehend,  he  had  glanced  furtively  at  her 
unconscious  face,  to  see  what  sudden  relegation  of 
him  might  as  suddenly  flare  out  of  her  eyes. 

Into  the  even  security  of  his  days — his  stroll  to  the 
village  law  office  where  he  maintained  a  fictional 
activity,  his  long  gossips  over  the  soiled  table-cloth  in 
the  fly-blown  dining  room  of  the  Ware  hotel,  heated 
by  its  iron  stove  to  the  temperature  of  July,  his  call  at 

[368] 


ASCENT 

the  post  office  for  the  evening  paper,  on  his  way  home, 
and  his  supper,  with  Norah  to  gossip  over  his  shoulder, 
under  the  students'  lamp — Devon's  telephone  message, 
a  few  days  before,  had  come  with  the  effect  of  an  over 
turning  of  all  his  confidence.  That  Olive  was  ill — 
gravely  ill,  Devon  had  briefly  said — seemed  somehow 
less  perturbing  than  the  fact  that  they  were  to  arrive, 
with  a  trained  nurse  and  maids  and  heaven  knew  how 
many  trunks.  In  his  mind  their  luggage  multiplied 
itself  endlessly,  until  the  station  master  at  Ware  was 
crushed  under  its  bulk  and  his  friendship  for  Philip 
alienated  in  perpetuity.  The  details  were  all  incom 
prehensible  enough  to  him;  but  there  hovered  at  the 
edges  of  his  vague  thought  the  fact  that  it  was  most 
incomprehensible  of  all  that  Olive  had  wished  to  come. 
He  had  tried  to  express  his  uncertainties  to  his  son-in- 
law,  that  morning;  but  Devon  had  asked  him,  with  a 
directness  which  always  disconcerted  his  flurried  con 
sciousness,  to  wait.  Olive  had  stood  the  journey 
badly;  that  was  the  one  fact  paramount  in  Devon's 
mind,  and  he  was  off  to  Wickford  for  the  day,  he  said, 
to  meet  and  bring  back  an  excellent  man  from  Paris, 
who  happened  to  be  at  the  hospital  there  for  a  series 
of  lectures,  and  another  nurse. 

"Olive  will  talk  to  you  when  she's  rested  enough 
— later  in  the  day,"  he  had  ended,  as  he  drew  on  his 
gloves,  and  the  lines  thickly  drawn  under  his  eyes 
had  relaxed  for  an  instant  in  their  look  at  Philip. 
"Don't  worry  too  much,  Mr.  Lacy.  Let's  wait  until 
we  see  this  new  man.  .  .  .  And  I've  the  specialist  who 
has  been  looking  after  her  in  New  York, — the  best 
in  the  world,  they  say, — coming  up  next  week  and 
whenever  we  want  him." 

[369] 


ASCENT 

The  questions  seething  in  Philip's  brain — where  was 
the  trained  nurse  to  have  her  meals,  did  Beatrix's  milk 
need  to  be  boiled,  and  what  in  the  world  could  be  done 
about  the  broken  places  in  the  back  stairs,  since  he 
hadn't  had  time  to  have  them  mended? — had  had  to 
be  content  with  this.  Throughout  the  day,  which  he 
and  Beatrix  had  spent  in  the  sitting  room,  he  had 
heard  no  sound  except  every  now  and  then  the  nurse's 
quick  footfall  on  the  stairs.  At  five  o'clock  she  had 
opened  the  sitting  room  door,  with  a  request  which 
had  added  perceptibly  to  his  nervous  apprehension. 
Olive  sent  him  word  that — of  all  things — she  wanted 
to  see  Abby  Trail.  He  was  to  have  Norah  run  over 
and  ask  Abby  to  come  to  her  at  six;  she  was  generally 
at  her  best  about  then;  and  he  himself  was  to  go  up 
to  her  with  Abby.  He  had  repeated  the  facts  endlessly 
to  himself,  as  if  repetition  could  denude  them  of  some 
of  their  strangeness,  between  the  verses  he  was  declaim 
ing  with  a  ritual  regularity. 

A  step  sounded  on  the  porch  outside,  followed  by 
the  sharp  tinkle  of  the  electric  bell  at  the  front  door, 
and  Philip's  face  smoothed  with  relief.  He  rose 
eagerly,  to  find  Miss  Trail's  square  figure  already  in 
the  passage  way.  Her  open  face  acted  upon  him  with 
an  unconscious  reassurance,  and  he  drew  her  into  the 
sitting  room. 

"Oh,  Abby,  I  thought  you'd  never  come;  and  Norah 
says  the  cold's  awful.  Olive's  here— you  know,  of 
course!  They  took  the  day  train  and  arrived  last 
night.  She's  been  ill,  you  know,  and  they're  so 
anxious — and  she  wants  to  see  you;  it's  something 
particular, — of  course  it  must  be.  You  can  imagine 
how  surprised  I  was— why,  it  was  the  very  last  thing 

[370] 


ASCENT 

I  ever  expected!  And  she's  ill — really  ill.  No,  it  does 
seem  as  if  all  the  trouble  in  the  world  had  to  come  to 
me !" 

Miss  Trail,  with  a  pat  on  his  arm,  had  motioned  him 
to  silence.  The  nurse  was  standing  at  the  door  again, 
and  she  went  forward  and  exchanged  a  rapid  word  or 
two  with  her.  Philip  set  down  Beatrix  on  the  hearth 
rug,  with  her  bricks  in  front  of  her,  and  gave  a  cautious 
eye  to  the  coals;  then,  with  his  deepening  expression 
of  pained  incomprehension,  he  followed  Abby  up  the 
stairs. 

Olive  had  been  taken,  the  night  before,  to  her  grand 
father's  room;  and  its  small  confines,  in  the  gathering 
dusk,  threw  into  sharp  relief  the  narrow  bed  and  the 
blackness  of  her  hair  on  the  pillow.  She  lay  with  the 
same  immobility — the  thought  had  circled  in  her  mind, 
throughout  the  day — with  which  Mr.  Lacy,  in  his  last 
hours,  had  lain.  The  years  between  them,  as  well  as 
the  years  since  his  death,  had  been  cancelled  with  the 
idea,  and  she  had  caught  herself  wondering  if  he  had 
been  as  annoyed  as  she  at  the  constant  sounds  from 
the  kitchen  and  the  pattern  of  the  ornate  wall  paper, 
as  one's  glance  followed  it;  and  if  from  the  same  pillow 
he  had  looked  at  his  approaching  exploration  of  an 
infinitude  with  anything  like  her  eyes.  Her  look,  as 
Philip  and  Abby  stood  in  the  doorway,  was  as  full  as 
ever  of  its  reticences.  It  had  attached  itself,  with  a 
fixity  of  absorption,  to  her  bare  arm,  lying  across  the 
sheet,  with  her  rope  of  pearls  twisted  two  or  three 
times  about  it  and  slipping  between  her  wrist  and  her 
sharpened  elbow. 

She  turned  her  head,  at  a  word  from  the  nurse,  and 
as  she  greeted  them  her  voice  had  its  definite  quality. 

[37i] 


ASCENT 

"Well,  Abby—  "  she  made  a  motion  with  her  hand 
— "it  was  nice  of  you  to  come  in.  Times  change, 
don't  they?  It  must  be  quite  a  journey  for  you  from 
the  idea  you've  had  of  me  all  these  years — to  see  me 
prostrate !  Yes,  and  asking  a  charity  of  you — I ! " 

"Of  course,  Olive,  I'm  glad  to  see  you,"  Miss  Trail 
had  touched  the  coverlet,  as  she  stood  by  the  bed,  with 
a  hand  accustomed  to  sickness.  Her  reddened  face 
was  deep  in  its  gravity.  "And  I'm  glad  you're  here — 
since  we  heard  you  wanted  to  be  here !  The  trip  wasn't 
so  easy  for  you,  I  guess,  and  it's  a  good  thing  it's  over 
with.  I've  been  so  sorry  to  hear  it — all  you've  had  to  go 
through.  And  as  for  favours, — well,  anything  I  can 
ever  do  for  you  is  done;  I'm  sure  you  know  that!" 

Olive  again  shifted  her  head,  with  an  added  rest 
lessness  in  the  motion.  A  bright  blaze  of  colour  in  her 
cheeks  seemed  to  rise  and  fall  with  her  breathing. 

"I  told  the  nurse  I  wanted  father  here  when  you 
came;  I'm  going  to  shake  all  your  preconceived  notions 
of  me,  and  it's  so  much  shorter  work  to  shake  you 
together.  What's  become  of  that  house  of  your 
father's,  Abby,  on  Long  Hill?  The  Long  Hill  farm, 
they  called  it,  I  think." 

"Long  Hill—!"  Miss  Trail  hesitated.  "Why,  of 
course  .  .  .  !  I'm  surprised  you  remember  it.  The 
house  has  been  empty  now,  for  nearly  a  year;  it's  a 
dreary  kind  of  place,  way  off  on  that  hill-top,  and  poor 
soil.  But  in  the  spring  we  were  thinking  we'd  try  to 
fix  it  up  a  little,  so  as  to  get  a  good  tenant  ..." 

"Well,  here's  your  tenant."  Olive  spoke  with  all 
her  succinctness.  "I  want  the  house." 

"You!"  Abby  had  broken  out  before  Philip  could 
murmur.  "Why,  Olive.  .  .  ." 

[372] 


ASCENT 

"Yes,  I  want  it.  John  understands,  and  he's  willing. 
He'll  manage  everything.  He's  used,  you  know,  to  my 
impossible  ways.  Beatrix,  father,  can  stay  down  here 
with  you  and  with  her  nurse;  and  the  doctors  can 
come  to  me.  John  wants  to  see  you  at  once,  Abby, 
about  getting  it  a  little  tidy  for  us.  I  don't  suppose 
it's  luxurious!  But  as  soon  as  it's  ready — and  when 
I  can  stand  it — they'll  move  me  up.  They'll  have  to 
hurry,"  her  ironic  gaze  swept  the  figures  beside  her 
bed;  "I'll  have  to  get  through  the  roads  before  the 
snow  comes,  won't  I?" 

Abby's  pale  puzzled  eyes  fixed  her.  "Of  course  you 
can  have  the  house,  and  welcome.  But  it's  in  no  kind 
of  order;  and  way  off  there  ...  I  really  do  think 
you'd  best  think  about  staying  here,  if  it's  the  high  air 
you  want,  and  letting  us  all  fix  you  up  com 
fortably.  .  .  ." 

"But  there's  no  plumbing!"  Philip  broke  in;  his 
final  mystification  was  reached. 

"And  really,  Olive,  it's  the  wildest  sort  of  place  .  .  ." 

Olive's  attention  seemed  to  cling  suddenly  to  the 
words. 

"That's  just  what  I  want.  I  don't  care  about  the 
paint  or  the  plumbing,  father — or  anything  else."  She 
made  her  impatient  gesture.  "I've  done  with  all  the 
rest  of  it!  What  I  want  is  the  bareness."  Her  eyes 
closed  for  a  moment.  "I  know  you  think  I'm  mad 
enough.  I  think  I'm  rather  mad  myself.  It's  only 
John  who  doesn't;  and  when  I  said  to  him  that  I  had 
to  come  back  to  Ware,  away  from  the  ease  and  the 
care  and  the  doctors,  and  everything  most  people  want, 
and  had  to  come  because  I'd  so  hated  it,  he  understood 
— oh,  better  than  I  did.  And  now,  when  I  want  to  go 

[373] 


ASCENT 

to  the  loneliest  place  possible,  what  I'd  hate  even  more 
than  Ware  itself,  he  understands  that  too.  I  daresay 
it's  not  orthodoxy,  father;  but  it's  easier  to  die  in 
ugliness — to  let  life  go  when  it's  stripped.  ...  So  now 
you  know  why  I've  come.  I'm  trying,"  her  smile  lit 
her  eyes  for  a  second,  "to  get  used  to  eternity  .  .  ." 

Her  voice  trailed  off.  "Do  you  remember,  Abby, 
that  John  and  I  met  you  there,  one  evening  when  you 
were  coming  out  of  the  farm,  and  we  passed  you  on 
the  road — such  a  road!" 

"Yes;  I  remember  just  as  if  it  was  yesterday;" 
Abby's  voice  was  grave. 

"And  Lizzie — what  was  her  name,  who  lived  at  Long 
Hill?  Lizzie  with  the  history,  you  know;  what's 
become  of  her?" 

"She  got  in  bad  ways  again,"  Miss  Trail's  tone  was 
reluctant.  "I  couldn't  do  anything  with  her,  and  she 
slipped  off,  one  night — no  one  ever  knew  how.  But, 
my  dear —  "  she  hesitated. 

"How  far  more  consistent  than  I ! "  Olive's  look  had 
drawn  Miss  Trail  again  to  the  bedside,  and  her  eyes 
met  her  fully.  "She  at  least  had  the  courage  to  get 
what  she  wanted,  while  I  ...  No,  Abby,  you  wouldn't 
call  my  irreligious  state  of  mind  pretty,  I  see!" 

Abby  bent  over  her.  "It's  such  a  wonderful  climate, 
you  know,  and  things  do  happen  that  are  so  extraor 
dinary  ...  !" 

Olive's  hand  touched  hers.  "That's  nice  of  you! 
But  really  I  don't  need  it;  or  perhaps  I  ought  to  say, 
it's  no  good.  Then  it's  all  right  about  the  house?  And 
now  do,  if  you  don't  mind,  let  me  rest.  .  .  ." 

As  he  watched  her  gradual  depletion,  Devon  thought 
[374] 


ASCENT 

chiefly  of  two  things.  What  was  most  ceaselessly  in 
his  mind  was  the  progressive  loss  he  had  for  so  long 
traced  of  her  first  integrity,  that  youthful  wholeness 
which  had  given  her,  even  in  her  egoism,  more  than 
anyone  he  had  ever  seen,  an  eagerness  as  high  and  pure 
as  the  most  bodiless  illusion;  and  of  the  concessions 
and  soilures  in  her  sacrifice  of  herself.  No  chance  of 
accident  could  so  have  hurt  her — not,  he  felt,  the 
coarsest  and  the  most  promiscuous  experience — as 
her  consuming  individualism  and  her  ignorance  of 
any  values  but  her  own.  The  others  would  have  been 
errors  and  faults  of  standard;  but  her  preserved 
incapacity  to  feel  and  be  and  her  perpetual  imposition 
of  herself,  had  frayed  and  destroyed  her  personality, 
until  that  fact  in  itself  seemed  intolerable  to  him. 

The  second  thought  so  constantly  present  to  him 
was  the  persistent  impression,  which  he  had  always 
felt,  of  her  identification  with  larger  issues  than  her 
own.  Her  lack  of  any  visible  tradition  or  standard, 
except  of  the  miniature  personal  ones,  her  failure  in  her 
faith,  her  complete  negation  of  any  obligations  to 
individuals  or  to  a  society,  had  made  her  extraor 
dinarily  suggestive  of  processes  and  penalties  of  which 
she  was  only  an  exemplification.  She  loosed  her  hold 
on  the  conditions  of  her  life  with  this  same  suggestion 
of  dealing  in  wider  spaces  than  the  miseries  of  even  her 
suffering.  At  times,  when  he  sat  beside  her  bed,  in  the 
immeasurable  desolation  of  the  farmhouse  kitchen, 
which,  at  this  temperature,  was  the  only  habitable 
room,  Devon  felt  himself  caught  up  by  the  high  hand 
with  which  she  carried  her  surrender.  Her  confidence 
in  the  validity  of  her  idea  never  quivered  at  the  thought 
of  their  removal.  She  had  had  a  profound  revolt,  but 

[375] 


ASCENT 

saying,  ceaselessly,  how  kind  Abby  is  .  .  .  !  And  I 
used  to  say,  when  I  was  tiny,  that  I  wouldn't  die;  yes, 
and  believed  it,  too!  Well,  perhaps  it's  better;  perhaps 
I  should  only  have  made  you  unhappy  again  .  .  ." 
Her  voice  stopped  and  changed.  "If  I  hadn't  been 
frightened  into  it,  I  should  never  have  admitted  that!" 
she  ended,  with  a  flare  of  old  Lacy's  sagacity. 

He  raised  his  head  to  look  at  her.  "But  of  course 
you'd  have  made  me  unhappy;  you'd  have  gone  against 
— oh,  not  so  much  me,  but  the  laws  of  feeling.  You're 
a  rebel,  Olive;"  his  grasp  tightened.  "As  if  I  minded! 
My  relation  with  you  has  been  in  spite  of  yourself; 
but  what  does  that  count?  My  devotion  to  you  has 
been,  you  know,  in  some  ways,  your  only  approach  to 
a  soul!" 

Her  rare  smile  showed.  "I  don't  understand  you; 
but  since  you  say  it.  .  .  ." 

Her  eyes  closed,  and  as  he  leaned  close  to  her  he 
could  see,  with  the  fading  of  her  strength,  that  the 
thought  faded  from  her  face. 

Devon  rose  and,  moving  silently  across  the  room, 
he  opened  the  door  and  stepped  out  into  the  profundity 
of  the  night.  A  snow  was  falling  through  the  darkness. 
The  mystery  of  its  sound,  in  the  still  air,  laid  on  him 
the  touch  of  ultimacy.  He  stood  and  listened  to  it, 
tracing,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  with  his  vitality  itself,  the 
long  stages  which  had  led  to  her  final  arrival.  The 
mysterious  alchemy  of  a  fate,  working  against  her 
personal  volition  and  concessions,  had  never  appeared 
to  him  larger.  While  this  sense  of  extension  so  pos 
sessed  him  he  could  see  that,  even  in  her  dependence 
and  in  her  attempt  at  response,  she  had  given  him 
something  the  inevitability  of  which  was  almost  as  rich 

[378] 


ASCENT 

as  the  emotion  of  which  she  was  incapable.  With  the 
passage  of  his  thoughts  and  his  beliefs,  out  through 
the  obscurity  which  was  to  be  the  next  stage  of  her 
journey,  he  felt  his  own  personality  pass.  It  was  this 
same  conviction  of  the  identity  of  himself  with  her, 
with  which,  one  spring  morning  a  few  weeks  later,  he 
saw  her  carried  out  to  the  hill-top  and  laid  in  her  grave. 


Finis. 


[379] 


$2.00 


A    000110635    o 


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